Best Laid Plans
by fbobs
Summary: Starts where season 4 ends. What would happen if some part of Henry's organization didn't want Annie to survive? How would that affect her return to Langley? Who are the leaks and moles? This story puts all of Season 4 between this and my previous story. Better, but not essential, to have read my previous two Covert Affairs stories. All chapters exist in draft form.
1. Chapter 1

Hi-jacked / FRW

**AN: **I own nothing from the show Covert Affairs. I just like playing with their characters. I owe a huge thank you to Gwynne, AleciaB, and Patricia Louise for their help with this story. I experimented with the concept of having exactly one POV all through the story. Annie's. I liked it. I think it enabled the story to be tighter and more focused. I ended up deviating from it for an indispensable scene where she wasn't involved and having someone tell her about it would have been really awkward. That one scene doesn't happen till around chapter 14. I also experimented, in chapter 4, with internal dialog, in Annie's head of course. I really enjoyed writing this story. I hope you do too.

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**Prologue **

**8:00 AM Day 4, Hallway outside of the civilian conference room, Langley, VA:**

Annie approached the doorway into the conference room with trepidation. She'd been _'dead'_ for five months. She'd learned that Auggie had picked up the phone with great reluctance and told her sister Annie was dead just minutes after Calder had shot her in the elevator. Now Danielle was in the conference room; she expected either Calder Michaels or Joan Campbell to arrive and ask for her help with some final details related to her dead sister. Calder had shown Annie a picture of Danielle standing beside Auggie at her grave while the urn containing her ashes was lowered into the hole.

Danielle had boxed up her sister's belongings to be placed in storage. Auggie and Calder had told her they had to be saved for seven years in case there was evidence in them that needed to be retrieved. Her sister had been told she had died a traitor: a disgraced and humiliated agent who had forced another CIA operative to shoot her in self-defense. Annie couldn't imagine what had gone through Danielle's mind all these months or what she had told Chloe and Katia. It must have been devastating for all of them. Annie loved her sister and nieces beyond words, and yet she'd visited all this suffering on them.

She almost turned around, but Calder's words echoed in her head, "You can't be Annie Walker ever again unless you tell Danielle." She took a deep breath, exhaled, pushed the door open, and walked into the room.

Her soft rubber soled boots had made her approach silent. When she first saw her, Danielle stood at the window and gazed into the gray of the sky with the saddest, most forlorn expression Annie had ever seen on her face. It made Annie want to cry. Instead, she said, softly, "You can't see Venus in the daylight."

**Chapter 1**

**Resurrection Isn't For Wimps - Part 1**

**11:30 PM Hong Kong Time, Day 0, Civilian yacht, 120 miles off the China coast in the South China Sea:**

Annie decided the yacht must be close to the carrier group. The helmsman had called Annie to take a look at the radar. They could see a hard return from several ships spread out over five or six miles right at the edge of the radar's twenty mile useful range. For the last hour, they'd been aware of a helicopter shadowing them in the dark. They could hear it, but they hadn't seen it, and it apparently had no lights on it.

Annie's burner phone rang. She tapped the screen to answer the call but said nothing. An unfamiliar voice said, "Identify."

Unsure of how to answer she took a chance and replied with her old code name, "Matrix."

She was relieved when the voice replied, "Protocol Directive 4230."

Annie thought for a second, and then replied with a code she hadn't used in almost two years, "Clover."

That, too, was apparently the correct reply because the voice said, "Stop the boat now"

Annie turned to the helmsman and shouted over the deep bass thrumming of the engines, "Please stop the boat." He immediately pulled the throttle levers back, then nursed them back forward to ease the boat through an uncomfortable forward surge while the stern wave washed under it and then eased the throttles back to idle, then slid the transmission levers to neutral and let the boat settle in the water. Scanning quickly around she could see they were fortunate. There was almost no wind and the ocean was relatively calm with long easy swells of maybe five or six feet that caused the boat to rock, but gently, once it had stopped.

Mindful of how far off shore they were, Annie asked the captain, "Are you able to kill the engines without causing damage?"

"I'd rather not. The turbochargers are really heat soaked after this six-hour run at max cruise, and I don't want to cook the oil in their bearings. I usually let them idle for at least ten or fifteen minutes to prevent that."

"Okay, let them idle. We need to listen for them to hail us."

The voice on the phone continued, "Turn on your deck lights. You will be approached by a rubber boat that has three Navy Seals aboard. They will identify as Red 1. You are call sign Matrix. Do as they say. They have your picture with dyed hair."

She replied, "WILCO." The call ended. She turned to the helmsman and said, "Please turn on the deck lights. A rubber boat with three Navy Seals will approach. They will identify themselves as Red 1. I'll board their boat, and then you are to immediately return to Hong Kong."

He looked at her, flipped on the deck lights which destroyed most of her night vision and then said simply, "Good luck."

She rewarded him with her first smile since she boarded and said, "Thank you for the ride."

He nodded and turned to check the gages for the twin CAT Diesels.

A few minutes later, they were flooded with a bobbing light. Annie heard a voice, amplified by a loud hailer, say, "Matrix, this is Red 1."

Annie cautiously stepped over to the port side to clearly see the smaller vessel about fifty yards away. It looked like a rubber boat with three Seals in wetsuits aboard might look, so she waved and shouted in acknowledgement, "This is Matrix."

She saw the person near the middle of the rubber boat hold up an megaphone of some sort and heard him say, "Matrix, we'll come along your port side amidships. Prepare to jump down into this boat."

Unsure if they could hear a reply, she climbed over the railing to put herself outside it about amidships where the boat didn't go up and down like it did in the bow and stern. A few seconds later, the rubber boat pulled alongside. It shifted several feet with the relative motion of the two boats, but they kept the light aimed so it didn't blind her, and so she could clearly see them and the boat. Their hands were empty. They had weapons, but they were set aside. The voice said, "Let me see your feet." She held out a foot; the light shone on it and illuminated her flat-soled boots. Apparently they were satisfactory because she was told, "Jump for the middle of the boat."

She saw what looked like an orange target slightly forward of the man with the megaphone, judged her moment, let go of the railing and stepped out to take the six-foot drop straight down. She landed and collapsed with a muted cry of pain. Her body had sustained some injuries that had been initially hidden by the effects of adrenaline, but they'd made themselves known during the long boat ride and definitely hadn't responded well to landing in the boat. She converted her landing into a partial shoulder roll that ended up against one side of the boat to avoid one point in the boat or her body taking the full impact. She waited a few seconds until the pain subsided and sat up with the aid of a couple of hands on her upper arms to steady her. The boat accelerated smoothly away from the yacht. The acceleration was smooth; the motion of the rubber boat wasn't.

The two men instantly let her go and kept their hands empty, palms facing her when she maneuvered her body so that if she had to she had access to her gun. The tall lanky one moved to the bow. She glanced at each of the three men to get a quick appraisal and asked, "Who are you and where are you taking me?"

The one closest to her said, just loud enough for her to hear, "Seal Team 3. I'm Command Master Chief Jed Peters. The driver is Chief Maxwell; the bowman is Petty Officer First Class Lewis. Our assignment is to escort and protect you until we can hand you over to the CIA at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa. Are you injured, Ma'am?"

Annie ignored his question and asked, "Am I under arrest?"

"No! Absolutely not. We are your security team. We were told you are a high level operative to be treated as a VIP. We are not to restrain you in any way and not to search you. If you need something, anything, we're to figure out how to provide it. If anybody tries to harm you, we are to do whatever is necessary to prevent it. Lethal force is authorized to protect you. And along with those instructions, we were told the toughest part of this whole assignment - we are to ask you no questions not related to your well-being. Ma'am, are you injured?"

While he answered her first question, Annie took advantage of the moment to do a quick assessment of the men she'd quite literally jumped into the boat with. She only had a few seconds to take advantage of the yacht's lights. CIA approbation was enough to get her in the boat, her personal assessment dictated how she'd relate to them. She looked closely at Master Chief Peters; he was the closest to her and crouched between her and the Seal driving the boat. She didn't like having the third one behind her but went ahead with her assessment anyway. His eyes were gunfighter grey but not unkind. There were wrinkles around them that suggested a tendency to smile. His face didn't shine in the night, so she presumed he had a tan, and his hair was slightly long and unruly for a service man, but she'd heard the Seals did that. The tight fitting wet suit left no doubt his build was not unlike an extremely fit, more compact, brown haired version of Auggie. She knew there would be deceptive strength and agility, but he also moved with a bit of caution. There were some hard miles on him. There was nothing closed or suggestive of deception about his posture, facial expression or gestures. She could sense he knew she was armed, and as her gaze flicked back and forth between them, all three appeared to go out of their way to avoid simulating anything resembling a hostile response from her. His hands were empty, ungloved and open in front of her. So were the hands of the man in the bow. The driver had his hands full of wheel and throttle.

She liked what she saw of Peters direct gaze, the fact that he looked her in the eye and didn't slide his eyes over her like he was sizing her up. There was a genuine curiosity in his gaze, but that was entirely natural given the circumstances and his position of command. A stark white scar that looked like the remains of an old knife slash cut across the lower part of his left cheek and continued into his neck. Annie would be willing to bet money that a heck of a story went along with it. She made a conscious decision to accept him and what he said at face value subject to continuing evaluation.

Her assessment of Chief Peters had taken two or three seconds. She shifted her gaze quickly to Chief Maxwell. He had his face toward her where he sat at the console, surprisingly aft in the boat, that held the wheel and the throttle. His gaze was focused forward on the surface of the ocean, and she could feel the boat move in accordance with his input to the wheel. He'd clearly done this before and drove the boat forward at a heart stopping rate but with practiced ease. She could see his lips moving now and then as if he was talking to someone, and then she noticed the throat microphone on both him and Chief Peters. That discovery was reassuring.

Returning her study to Maxwell after the quick glance to find the throat microphone on Peters, she could tell in the rapidly diminishing light from the receding yacht that he was African American, and he was slightly overdue for a haircut. His abundant black hair was trying hard to curl as it grew out from the regulation crew cut. What she could see of his body in the skin tight wetsuit looked huge, well muscled, and fit as an NFL line backer. His hands on the controls of the boat were large and powerful as they moved deftly in response to each wave's direction and power. He might have made his own assessment of her, but his glance didn't land on her during the few seconds she spent sizing him up. She liked that. Two in the okay category.

She instantly swiveled her glance to the bow in the now near total darkness. The yacht had turned away from them and they were rocketing away from it. From the length of his torso and arms she guessed Lewis was tall for a Seal at maybe 6' or a little over. She could clearly see he was still young enough to be lanky, but it was obvious his shoulders were solid and if the contours of the wetsuit were any clue, both long and heavily muscled. Despite the serious nature of their mission, he offered her a smile when he was introduced and held up his free hand in greeting. Annie noticed that the tip of his left ring finger was missing. It was quite dark but she could see how bright and white his face was, even compared to Peters. She concluded he was probably too fair to really tan. She couldn't tell his hair or eye color, but if she had to guess, she'd go with red hair. She was reminded by the scars and wounds that these were people, much like herself, they were self propelled evidence that they had chosen to serve country over self.

Her assessment completed, result at least tentatively favorable, she decided to answer his question about her well being truthfully. "Yes, but nothing requiring immediate attention." She paused while she processed the information. "Thanks for picking me up. Please call me Matrix. What's the plan to get me to Okinawa?"

She could see Peters stance change to indicate some relief that she'd chosen to answer when he came right back with, "We'll be boarding a destroyer in about half-an-hour. We'll go by chopper from that to the carrier. Sometime later, we will go from the carrier to Kadena in a C2A. That's a twin-engine, turboprop, logistics supply plane. I tried to get you a backseat in an F18, but that was turned down by your agency as attracting too much attention and, believe it or not, too vulnerable. Kadena is about a three hour ride in the turboprop. It vibrates, and it's noisy, but it's reliable as gravity. We are to turn you over to a CIA representative at Kadena after making sure he or she really are CIA. That's where our assignment ends."

"How will you know they are really CIA?"

"I was told we would both know the person meeting us. That it's someone I trust and that you would trust with your life."

She said, "Thanks. I've no idea who we might know in common, but that's a good answer." She brought herself back to her immediate predicament and asked, "Where do you want me to sit?"

"There really isn't any place that's going to be either dry or comfortable, if you have bruised ribs, but if you sit on that seat you will find two handholds, and that will be better than in the puddle we will soon have. We bailed it so you wouldn't have to jump into it. There is a rough weather jacket with a hood on the other side of that seat. Undo the straps and put it on. You'll be both warmer and dryer. Sorry about the length of the ride, but the Admiral didn't want that yacht to get any closer to the fleet, just in case."

"I understand."

Annie moved carefully, the rubber boat with the outboard travelling at full throttle wasn't exactly a smooth ride over an ocean that suddenly seemed a lot rougher than it had when she was on the yacht. She thought the guard she'd fought had cracked a few ribs, but she could live with that. Maybe get them taped up on the carrier if there was time. She was pretty sure her entire body was Technicolor from bruises caused by the blows she'd received. At least she still had all her teeth and from what she could tell, no concussion.

The moonless night and her inability to predict the small boat's motion didn't help with getting the jacket on a body that was stiff and sore, but she managed. She timed her movements to the motion of the boat as it slid over the ocean swells. The more stable moments let her struggle into the jacket but were soon followed by quick grabs for support. She was grateful the Seals kept their hands to themselves. Not that she didn't believe them, but letting people in her space was really uncomfortable at the moment. She felt her spirits lift a little about twenty minutes later when she saw lights in the distance. She pointed towards them, "Chief, is that where we are going?"

He glanced at her pointed finger and shouted back, "The last set of lights off to starboard. Chief Maxwell is in communication with them. They have us on a converging course. They will be about where we are headed by the time we get there. They don't want us close to the carrier - it's too risky. The carrier won't stop or slow down. The destroyer will stop, which they purely hate to do in the open ocean, pick us up then play catch up." He paused then continued, "When we get there, we are supposed to keep you separate from the crew on the destroyer and the carrier. We are the only people you are to talk to. We do have permission for you to get medical attention. Watching you, I think you need it. We were told the isolation is for their protection, whatever that means."

Annie remained silent. She decided he'd continue on his own, which he did, "We'll take you to the helicopter hangar on the destroyer; it will have been cleared, and we'll wait there for the chopper from the carrier. Once we're on the carrier, we've arranged a private room where you can clean up and take a nap. Two of us will be outside your door at all times. Based on where we are now and when we're likely to get to the carrier, I think there will be about a six hour wait until the C2A takes off. If you wish, we'll get you a meal, a change of clothes and get yours cleaned. They have a full laundry on the carrier, and I'm pretty sure we can get your clothes through them and back to you in plenty of time."

"That would be good. They're pretty grubby. I'll need woman's medium or small pants - 26" waist, 28" inseam - with a good belt, under shirt, and a cover shirt one size too big. Men's small works for a shirt. No insignia."

"I know. They said you would be armed. We were told that's just fine with everybody. We certainly don't mind. But please don't broadcast that. Okay?"

"Roger that."

A few minutes later when they were on top of a swell she could make out the profile of a large ship, at least it looked huge from the rubber boat, still in the water. The Chief turned to her and said, "We'll sit in the bottom of the boat to keep the center of gravity as low as we can. They will lower a lift harness; we'll hook on, and they will lift this boat onto the deck with us in it. Sit in the bottom of the boat when they do that and try not to move so the boat stays as steady as it can during the hoist. Get a good hold; if this thing flips, you will be hanging by your hands. You can do that in your current condition, right?"

Annie said, "Yes, I can hang by my hands. No shoulder injuries. Do they flip often?"

"I've never been in one that has, but I know people that have."

"Got it."

Annie moved to sit in the cold puddle that sloshed in the bottom of the boat as they approached the side of the ship where there was a harness of some sort hanging down. It would dip in the water as the ship rolled. The three Seals worked together to quickly hook up the six lines to the boat during a dip and then dropped into the sloshing water with her. Chief Peters gave her a small smile then said, "Grab those handholds. You shouldn't need them, but you don't want to fall out if it gets rough"

She reached out and grabbed hold as he had instructed. She could tell he saw the bruising on her forearm where it extended out of the jacket because he said, "You need medical attention."

"Nothing serious, but if you have an experienced female medic on that carrier there are a couple of things I would like her to look at. I'm not bleeding and nothing major is broken. Just abrasions, contusions, maybe some cracked ribs and a lot of bruises. I'd like to prevent infection. I could also use some Tylenol - no narcotics or NSAIDS. I had a chance to walk off the adrenaline, but the cold and lack of movement is making me stiff."

"Got it." He took a look around, apparently saw they were swinging inboard and then continued, "Okay. They will lower us to the deck. We'll get out first, clear the area, and then signal you to climb down."

She repeated it back, "You'll dismount and clear the area. I follow on your signal." He looked relieved. He apparently had no idea what or who to expect when he was assigned to pick her up. But it probably wasn't the strangest assignment he'd had either. He was probably about her senior by four or five years, but, from how he moved, he had some hard miles on him. _Welcome to the party, _she thought.

The rest of the transfer to the carrier went as planned. The three Seals had left one at a time, shed the wet suits and returned in utility uniforms. They still had their handguns, now in tactical holsters, and M4s with an extra magazine each. She had a few moments of unease as the chopper lifted off: the image of the exploding chopper in Copenhagen replayed in her mind, but she managed to hang on and ride it out.

Chief Peters, more observant than she'd originally given him credit for, said, "Not all pleasant memories of chopper rides, I see." It wasn't a question.

She said, "That wasn't a question and," she smiled, "this isn't an answer. I wasn't on it, but I wasn't far away when the missile hit. Not forgettable."

"Roger that."

# # #

**8:00 AM Hong Kong Time, Day 1, Carrier Deck in South China Sea, main cabin of the Grumman C2A:**

Annie buckled herself into a seat on the Grumman C2A supply plane between Master Chief Peters and Chief Maxwell. She was wearing her cleaned clothes, had the benefit of several Tylenol, three hours of fitful sleep and some tape on her ribs. She'd apparently awoken screaming once because when she opened her eyes Peters and Maxwell were trying to wake her saying, "It's okay, Matrix. It's okay. You're safe."

She'd flinched, but they instantly released her, and she struggled to calm down. It took her a couple of minutes to get her breath back. Peters had said, "Matrix, we'll be right outside the door. We aren't going anyplace. There will never be less than two of us. We could hold off a platoon in that narrow passageway. You need anything, anything at all, just let us know, and we'll make it happen. But, given the nightmares you had, I'd put my gun out of reach before I went to sleep, if I were you."

She was able to relax a little and said, "Sorry guys. Don't mean to cause trouble. Not to worry, the gun is out of reach. I must feel safe here. The nightmares only happen when I think I'm safe. Never have them in the field." Even in her slightly groggy state, Annie was aware that her guards had found time to shower and change into clean uniforms. They somehow looked both more official and more like the dependable, tough-minded but friendly men she remembered from her 'Army brat' childhood.

Master Chief Peters said, "No problem. Get what sleep you can. I think you need it. We have Lewis at the end of this hallway, so nobody but us can hear you. But I thought you should know you were noisy and a little scary."

She'd replied, "I'll probably be okay for a couple of hours, and then I have to get up anyway."

When she'd arrived on the carrier, Annie had been surrounded by the Seals and escorted to a private room in officers' quarters on the carrier. It was apparently an empty room, or it had been completely cleared out to make a place for her. About five minutes after they arrived Peters knocked on the door and presented her with the clean clothes she's asked for. A private en suite was available. Mindful of boat protocols taught on The Farm, she had showered using as little water as she practically could and still get cleaned up, though she thought this carrier probably could make enough hot water for a small town.

Peters had been good as his word, and shortly there was a knock on the door. Annie cracked it and saw a trim dark haired female maybe a few inches taller than her with medical insignia and a small bag. She introduced herself as Commander Benson, one of the ship's trauma doctors. Annie let her in doing a quick assessment. She was somewhat plain looking but had bright intelligent eyes and gave off an aura of genuine concern for the health of others. Going over it later, Annie couldn't put her finger on what it was about this woman that led her to trust her almost instantly. But, soothed by the sense of trust, she mentally complemented Peter's on his choice of doctors.

When the doctor had completed a thorough examination of Annie, she took a seat across the room and expressed concern about the extensive bruising all over her body, particularly on Annie's abdomen, back, and ribs. The doctor was convinced that Annie had a couple of cracked but not broken ribs. When she had started to take notes Annie said, "Commander, please don't take any notes. I was never here, and you will never learn my name, so they are pointless. As long as I'm okay to travel, we can leave it at that."

The woman looked at her, sighed with resignation, and said, "You're one of them, aren't you?"

Despite her acceptance of the woman, Annie bristled a little and replied, "No idea who or what 'them' you are talking about. But I can't, and won't, tell you anything about myself."

That the doctor didn't take offense was obvious by her tone when she replied, "No problem. It's just that you are the first one of 'them' that's been female since I've been on board."

Annie softened her tone a little but still stuck to essentials when she replied, "I'm okay to travel, right?"

"Yes, but I'm going to recommend that you get to a hospital for x-rays and an abdominal CT scan within twenty-four hours to make sure there is no late developing organ damage and that you don't have any broken ribs that could puncture a lung. I'd like to do one right now. I'll wrap you up and give you some Tylenol to make you more comfortable. You've obviously engaged in hand-to-hand combat in the last couple of days. The bruises are different ages which implies multiple fights. Deep bruises like those on your torso are often accompanied by organ damage. At the moment there's no evidence of it, but don't wait too long - early diagnosis is your friend."

"Thanks. I'll take myself to a hospital first chance I get, which will probably be in two or three days."

"That's too long; you doubtless have a long flight ahead of you where medical access won't be possible, maybe for hours, if something flares up. Will you let Chief Peters bring you to sickbay? We have full facilities here, better than most hospitals. I would like to take a blood sample to make some basic checks."

"Can you clear everybody out of there? And the passageway between here and there? I really can't be seen."

"I need to go to a secure intercom to see if I can arrange that. There haven't been any flight deck incidents, so we should be good to go, but I have to check. If I can get permission and clear everybody out of there, will you let Chief Peters take you there?"

"How far is it?"

"About a five minute walk on this level. They can clear the hallway given ten minutes notice. I think that's why he asked that you be put in this room. It's our local 'safe house' so to speak."

"Who would take the x-rays and do the CT scan?"

"I can do the CT scan, but I'd prefer to have the resident radiologist do the x-rays. I'd like him to read both as well."

"What does he have to know?"

"Nothing. He would like to know your approximate age, height and weight for purposes of understanding the pictures. He's done this before for other code-name passengers."

"Code name passengers?"

"You're, Matrix, according to Chief Peters. No name, no number, just Matrix. So you are a code-name passenger."

"I'll go for the radiologist. But I want to take the films with me. If it's a digital x-ray, I want the file on a portable drive, and then you delete them off your server. The CT scan will be digital, and I want that file too."

"No problem, I expected that."

"Okay, on that basis, if you can get permission and Chief Peters agrees, I'll go."

"Peters agrees?"

"It's his job to keep me alive. I'm not in good enough shape to do that for myself at the moment, so he gets a vote."

Peters' voice brought her back to the present when he said, "This is going to be a boring three hour flight. Try to get some sleep if you can. We have some packaged food to eat on the way. The roast beef sandwiches have an 'eat-by' time on them, but they are usually really good."

Annie thought for a minute and said, "Once we're airborne, I'd love a roast beef sandwich. I suddenly have an appetite. Is there any place I can lie down? This seat is rather uncomfortable given my current condition."

"I wondered. I arranged for a hammock we can suspend in here. Commander Benson said you might feel like these seats were torture."

"She was right."

"She also said she wondered what your opponents looked like."

Annie just looked at him calmly and after a moment he said, "Right. No questions. But between us kids, the fact that you're here tells me they might not be doing all that well."

Annie continued to look calmly and steadily at him. He broke the silence by saying, "I'll find out if we are at cruising altitude. If we are, I'll get you that sandwich, and we'll put up the hammock."

Annie gave him a flicker of a smile and said, "Thanks. That would be great."

She'd awoken with a start, but Peters was smart enough to have just jiggled her foot and then moved back. She realized she was wide-eyed and poised to attack from the hammock before she remembered she'd cleared her gun and given it to Peters to hold for her. Her breathing returned to normal.

"Welcome back, Matrix. We're going to land in Okinawa in about half-an-hour, but we need to descend, and it could get rougher. They want us belted in."

"Okay. Thanks. Sorry. I know you aren't the enemy."

"No problem. I've had lots of experience waking up people post combat. They react just like you are when it's been pretty rough."

Annie said, "May I have my gun back?"

He held it with the slide locked back pointed in a safe direction. She took it, kept it pointed in a safe direction, inserted the magazine from her pocket, sling shotted the slide to chamber a round, popped the magazine, pulled the other one from her pocket, inserted it, palm slapped it onto the gun, stuck the gun in her waistband at four o'clock and topped up the remaining magazine with a loose round from her pocket. She didn't think anything of it, but when she looked up at Peters, he just nodded with an odd expression and said, "I thought so."

"Gave myself away, didn't I?"

"Not really. We already figured it out."

"Chief, so much of my life is chance that when I can eliminate unknowns, I do it pretty much out of habit. Don't think I don't trust you or that I suspect you tampered with my ammunition. I'm just trying to reduce uncertainty."

"I know. I think, based on what I've seen and what Commander Benson said, if we ever learned who you are and what you've done, we'd be proud to know you. Actually, we already are."

"Thanks. Be careful what you wish for, Chief."

# # #

**11:15 AM Hong Kong Time, Day 1, Main cabin of the Grumman C2A, Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa, Japan:**

Chief Peters and his team had deplaned and cleared the area. Annie was just about to climb down from the plane when she heard Peters shout, "Colonel Abbott, what are you doing here?" She stuck her head out of the hatch just in time to see Chief Peters drop his salute to Colonel Abbott. The colonel, trim and precise as ever took the remaining two strides to meet with Chief Peters and the two shook hands.

Annie heard the Colonel say, "It's good to see you, Chief. I think I'm supposed to meet another old friend, someone you are escorting. They picked me because I know you both."

Annie headed down the ramp just as the Colonel looked up and, when he saw her, gave a relieved smile. She could see him about to call her by name and shook her head, but he said, "I'm so damn glad to see you alive I don't care who knows it." As he spoke, he ducked around Chief Peters and headed directly for Annie.

She said, "Uncle Fred, please call me Matrix. I need a hug but be gentle; I'm a bit bruised up."

"Yeah, but that evil bastard is dead." He gave her a quick gentle hug and added, "My God, but your Dad would be proud of you."

"I'm not so sure. How much did Joan tell you?"

"Joan introduced me to Calder. He read me in enough that I can be there when and if you meet with Danielle in California. They didn't think you should do that alone."

"You need to tell me what you know, not here, but as soon as we get on that plane."

"I will."

Annie saw Chief Peters watching her and the Colonel with rapt attention. She saw him get ready to speak and tried to interrupt him, but he just shook his head and said, "Colonel Abbott, who did I just escort out of China?"

The Colonel turned to him and said, "Without going into specifics, the news is going a bit nuts with a story you may not have seen yet. I know you are smart enough to put it together for yourself - the timing is a dead giveaway. Her name won't be in it, and I won't tell you, but she's the one that got it done. You helped her get out of China where she has a huge price on her head and several thousand people hunting her with orders to kill on sight."

Peters stared at her and said with some wonder in his voice, "I saw the news while we were on the carrier. I wondered about the timing. The news is that Henry Wilcox was a traitor. He was found dead, face down in a puddle of blood in a back alley in Hong Kong. He was shot twice through the heart a little while before you would have had to leave to be where we picked you up. You took down Henry Wilcox. That has to be the high point of your career."

Annie's reply seemed to leave him dumbfounded when she said, "I sincerely hope not. It needed doing, but I'm not one bit proud of it." Then she turned to the Colonel and said, "Uncle Fred, get me out of here. I don't like standing here in the open. That slime had a lot of co-conspirators."

The Colonel turned and said, "Chief, can your team escort us to that Gulfstream? I'll take it from there."

The three Seals moved in around Annie their height effectively blocking any possible shot at her, and Chief Peters didn't leave her in the open even going up the stairs into the plane. When they got to the ramp, he picked her up as if she weighed twenty pounds and carried her up the stairs with his body between hers and the plane on the other side. When he put her down at the top of the stairs, he was apparently expecting a rebuff, but Annie just turned, stepped close, gave him a quick hug, released him and said, "Thanks, Chief. Tell your guys thank you for me. Stay safe." Then she turned, and walked into the passenger compartment of the plane.

# # #

**11:25 AM Hong Kong Time Day 1, 10:25 PM DC time, Day 0, CIA Chartered Gulfstream, Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa, Japan:**

The plane was set up as a long-range executive business jet. The door to the cockpit was closed. That bothered Annie when she entered the plane, for it occurred to her that she had only seen one head in the cockpit, and what little she could see of it hadn't looked right for an Air Force pilot. She chided herself for being sloppy. She wanted to meet and verify the credentials of whoever was flying the plane. She didn't want any surprises. When Colonel Abbott joined Annie a couple of minutes later, she asked, "Have you met the cockpit crew?"

"I met the crew that flew us over here; there will be two different crews to pilot the plane back to DC. This one will fly us to Pearl Harbor. The next will fly us to LAX and then on to DC."

"Uncle Fred, did you meet the pilots?"

"No. We've been here for forty minutes. I had to go to that hanger to use their encrypted landline to report our status, so I haven't had the cockpit in view the whole time since they arrived. They've been in there the whole time."

"There are two pilots, right?"

"Yes. I saw two Air Force pilots go in there."

"They were clean shaven, right?"

"Of course."

"I didn't see two heads in the cockpit as we walked up to the plane. I may sound paranoid, but I need to meet these guys before that door is closed. Can you make that happen?"

He nodded and said, "Definitely. Give me a minute."

"I'm coming with you. They are not to get my name. But I want to see their military ID, pilot's licenses and passports. I'm going to have them verified by Langley before that door closes or we get off this plane."

"Annie, ..."

"Call me Matrix till we get this cleared up and are in the air."

The Colonel sighed but said, "Okay, Matrix. Let's do it." He knocked on the cockpit door and said, "This is Colonel Abbott. I must validate your credentials before we close the door and start the engines."

There was a pause; Annie heard a muffled sound like a punch hitting a face and then felt the plane vibrate with what felt like a sudden violent movement in the cockpit. She had an instant bad feeling. She lunged to one side, body blocked the Colonel off balance and then pushed him forcefully out the door onto the ramp before he could react. She drew her gun, backed into the cabin and dropped to one knee on the floor behind the partition that separated the hatch from the cabin. She leaned to the right and extended her gun around the partition toward the cockpit. Her vision narrowed to the door when it cracked open and the muzzle of a shotgun poked out. In what seemed like slow motion, the gun fired once. She felt the partition vibrate from the hit, but no pain. The door opened wider. She waited until she saw the man wasn't in uniform, and before he could lower his shotgun to point at her, she fired two fast double taps into the upper right chest that was all she could see of his torso. After he fell, she moved forward, kicked the shotgun out the door where she heard it tumble down the ramp to the concrete. She ignored the shotgun, carefully checked and found no pulse on the man she'd just shot. He was dead.

01/26/2014


	2. Chapter 2 Resurrection Isn't For Wimps-2

**AN:** Thanks for the reviews. Much appreciated. Technically, Act I was over when the shotgun went off. So onward into Act II with many thanks to Gwynne, PatriciaLouise, and AleciaB for their patience and mentoring. Thanks to call2wrshp for pointing out an error in Chapter 1 that has since been corrected. Here is chapter 2 for your reading enjoyment.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

**Resurrection Isn't For Wimps - Part 2**

**Previously:**

_There was a pause; Annie heard a muffled sound like a punch hitting a face and then felt the plane vibrate with what felt like a sudden violent movement in the cockpit. She had an instant bad feeling. She lunged to one side, body blocked the Colonel off balance and then pushed him forcefully out the door onto the ramp before he could react. She drew her gun, backed into the cabin and dropped to one knee on the floor behind the partition that separated the hatch from the cabin. She leaned to the right and extended her gun around the partition toward the cockpit. Her vision narrowed to the door when it cracked open and the muzzle of a shotgun poked out. In what seemed like slow motion, the gun fired once. She felt the partition vibrate from the hit, but no pain. The door opened wider. She waited until she saw the man wasn't in uniform, and before he could lower his shotgun to point at her, she fired two fast double taps into the upper right chest that was all she could see of his torso. After he fell, she moved forward, kicked the shotgun out the door where she heard it tumble down the ramp to the concrete. She ignored the shotgun, carefully checked and found no pulse on the man she'd just shot. He was dead. _

**11:26 AM Hong Kong Time Day 1, 10:26 PM DC time, Day 0, CIA Chartered Gulfstream, Kadena ****Air Force Base, Okinawa, Japan:**

She rose up, stepped over him, looked into the cockpit and saw two men in uniform that were either unconscious or dead - she hoped unconscious. The one on the floor was zip tied hand and foot and gagged. The other was not restrained but slumped in the co-pilot's seat with heavy damage to the side of his face. Blood streamed from his cheek and lip. He was neither restrained or gagged. She decided the hijacker intended for him to fly the plane. There was also a parachute in the cockpit. She wasn't sure, but she thought the blow that knocked the seated pilot out could have been what she felt.

She checked out the windshield and saw no other hostiles but Peters and his team were sprinting in their direction: M4s at high port. She leaned back and turned to see Colonel Abbott with his phone out and barked, "Who are you calling?"

"Calder. He gave me a number to call if anything wasn't right. This certainly qualifies as not right."

"Do you have all your documentation in your bag?"

"Yes and a complete ID package for you as well."

"Give me the phone. Go intercept Chief Peters and his team; I saw out the windshield they're heading back here at a dead run, and they look ready for war. The war here is over, but I want them to clear the back of the plane."

Colonel Abbot handed her the phone and headed down the ramp.

Annie turned her attention to the phone when Calder answered, "Colonel Abbott, what's the problem?"

Annie replied, "Calder, it's Annie. We're still at Kadena, but the plane isn't going anywhere. We surprised a hijacker. I need a few seconds." Annie carefully moved past the body into the cockpit, checked both pilots, and was relieved they each had a pulse. "The intended pilots are unconscious. One is bound and gagged, the other slumped bleeding in the pilot's seat. They both have a pulse. The hijacker is dead."

Annie was relieved when Calder's only reply was, "Is the plane able to fly?"

"I don't know. I shot the guy in the chest but ... give me a second." She found the ejected shotgun shell casing and picked it up. When she read it she said, "I think we're good. He fired one shot at the bulkhead between the entrance hatch and the main cabin. It was a twenty gage target load of number eight shot. I don't see any obvious damage to the skin of the plane. The partition is messed up. The plane needs an expert inspection. Apparently he intended to attack in the air without damaging the plane. This was a kidnap attempt with assassination as plan B. There are no exit wounds on the hijacker's back. I'm pretty sure the military version of CSI will want to document the condition of the cockpit since it's a shooting on a military base, but the main mess is on the floor where his wounds are draining and the damage to the partition."

"Good. I need you back in Langley ASAP. Can you get the Seals back?"

Annie glanced out the door and said, "They heard the shots and are with Colonel Abbott at the bottom of the ramp."

"Put Colonel Abbott on the phone."

"What's your plan?"

"I need to talk to the Colonel."

"Do you have a backup plan?"

"No. I need to work one out with the Colonel."

"Then we'll use my backup plan."

"What's your plan?"

"First, who is the DCS?"

"I'm acting for the moment."

"Good. Get someone to big foot the Navy and Air Force and get Chief Peters' team, Colonel Abbott, and me on a military flight out of here to DC. I need to get back in from the cold right now, and they are the only people I trust out here. I want to meet and vet the crew before we take off. They aren't to know where they are going or who they are hauling until we are on the plane with the doors shut, and then I get to check them out. Make sure they have plenty of fuel to make it to Hawaii. Okay?"

There was a pause and then Calder said, "If I don't, you will disappear and show up in my living room early one morning, won't you."

"Yes."

"I like your plan better than the one that I was thinking of. I'll make it happen. Wait there. Please?"

"Call me back on this phone. We'll all wait in this plane. But have the military police come and get the body. He's going to stink. He already stinks. I'll text you a photo of him so you can get to work on an identity for him and figure out how Lexington Global got him in here with Henry dead. We can work out the other details with me safely inside Langley. But, for the moment, I want you to consider the possibility that the conspiracy doesn't end with Henry, that he wasn't the top of the food chain."

Calder's response was, "Shit!"

"Yeah. Including the Director of National Intelligence, Director of the Central Intelligence agency and anybody on the presidential cabinet, Senate Intelligence Committee, and the upper levels of DHS, NSA, and of course the CIA. The speed of the response, the ability to intercept me on such short notice, is what has me believe it's someone in Langley."

When there was silence on the other end, she continued, "Please take this the right way, but I'm not feeling either patient or secure at the moment, so please let me hear from you within the hour or I'm gone like smoke in a high wind. Oh, one more thing, I need to read in Chief Peters and his team. They need to know what they are up against."

"Permission granted to read in Peters and his team. Colonel Abbott too. The Seals all have Top Secret Clearances. Abbott may be retired but his Top Secret Clearance is still good. I checked."

"One more thing, keep this incident close to the vest. Don't tell the DCI, DNI, the General Counsel's office, State, or anyone else that could have made this happen. I want to tell them myself and see their reaction. If you need cabinet level executive assistance, use my birth name and talk to FBI Director Ramsey. He is read in on Annie Walker. He has some powerful allies."

"FBI Director knows you?"

"Yes."

"Okay. What makes you suspect the DCI and DNI?"

"They had to sign off on Henry's being in the building. They should have known he was trouble, but they didn't. I'm not whelmed with them at the moment. So I don't trust them. Duplicity or stupidity, doesn't matter, either could get me killed."

"Is there anyone here you trust?"

"You, Joan, Arthur, Eric Barber, and Auggie."

"DCI and DNI not so much?"

"You got it."

"I'll talk to Joan and Arthur. Anything else?"

"If you need to go outside the Agency at the hands on level, I trust two FBI agents in Philadelphia, Jo Bell, and Megan Burk. In DC, the FBI Director and Agent Vincent Rossabi are pretty much it."

"You trust the FBI Director more than the DCI?"

"Definitely. He and I have some history."

"Care to share?"

Annie heard footsteps coming up the ramp stairs and said, "No. Gotta go."

She ended the call and looked up to see Chief Peters who was red-faced and embarrassed. He said, "Matrix, this is my fault. I apologize. I should have cleared the plane and had the crew security checked."

She looked at him for a few seconds and said, "Not your fault. You got me to the Colonel. He and I released you. I'm paranoid enough for all of us. Call me Annie. I have permission to read you and your team in. You are accompanying me to Langley."

"Where did those orders come from?"

"Me."

"You can do that?"

"Yes. At the moment. Phenomena of Transient Importance. On-Scene-Commander. Whatever. Apparently, I know things people, that dead guy for example, would kill for. I apologize if it screws up any plans you had, but you, your team, and Colonel Abbott are the only available people I trust to deliver me alive to Langley at the moment. If my handler was here, he and I'd go it alone, but without him, I need all of you. You in?"

"Yes, we're in. Although it doesn't look like you need a lot of help. Who was that guy?"

"Let's find out. If you and your team will set up a perimeter, the Military Police should be here soon. They will have been told to accept your presence. I need to get this guy's picture off to Langley before they get here." Annie turned, used a blanket from the overhead rack to keep her hands from getting bloody, and turned the man's head so she could get a picture of his face.

Chief Peters said, "Let me hold the head while you take a picture."

Annie nodded and they transitioned the head, propped by the blanket, from her hands to his. Then she used the phone's camera and took two pictures. Then she took two more because her hands were shaking slightly, and she wanted to make sure there were some that were clear. She went through the corpse's pockets. In his jeans' back pocket she found a fake ID that had a picture of his face on it, so she also took a picture of both sides of that. She texted all the pictures to Auggie and Calder with a text message that said, "Who?"

Shortly after she'd texted the photos, she heard a siren, looked out and saw what would be first responders. She said, "Chief, get down there and keep them away from me. Be polite but don't let them into the main cabin. I'll clear the aft cabin and hide out in there. There should be an office or room of some sort back there.

# # #

**1:00 PM Hong Kong Time, 12:00 Midnight DC Time, Day 1, Tarmac, Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa, Japan:**

Annie felt like she had waited for hours in the office she found in the back of the plane, though she knew it was only about fifty minutes. The spare Glock 26 magazine Colonel Abbott had been able to get her was in her pocket. It had full metal jacket military ammo in it, but at least it was full. She had been given another six rounds from Chief Peters to replace those she'd used to kill Henry and the hijacker. Without them she was down to five rounds, and that was not enough. She'd emptied the magazine, inserted the six rounds of full metal jacket military ammo, re-inserted the hollow point ammo on top of it, and finally confirmed she had a hollow point round in the chamber. The military ammo from Peters and in the spare magazine wasn't the much more desirable hollow point ammo, but at least the military ammo could be trusted.

She looked around the office again habitually taking stock of her immediate environment. The office had a desktop computer, but it wasn't connected to anything. Colonel Abbott came back about every ten minutes with an update which helped to keep her frustration with the delay under control. She was also tired. The let down effect from the adrenaline rush during the attack by the hijacker did nothing to help her stay sharp. At least the nausea was under control. Colonel Abbott had asked for some food to be brought aboard. That sounded good but not until after they were back in the air.

She tried Auggie's phone, but he didn't answer. Finally, the phone rang a little less than an hour after she and Calder had ended their earlier conversation. She answered, "Calder, please tell me you have some good news."

"I have good news and better news."

"The good news?"

"The good news is that the Air Force has two pilots at Kadena who are checked out on the model of plane you are sitting in. They will check it over, and if they find nothing wrong, they will be willing to fly it to DC. They have been assigned to the base doing local transportation of senior staff for three months, so the possibility that they are involved with Lexington Global is vanishingly small. They need a third pilot because of the length of the flight. The better news is that one of the Navy pilots of the Grumman you flew in on, Commander Cameron, is also current on that aircraft. He is the highest ranking of the group, so he'll be in charge of the three of them. They think they can have the plane checked out, military police cleared off the plane and be ready take off in two hours."

"I get to meet them?"

"Yes. They don't understand why that condition, but their chain-of-command has told them to be polite about it. They do know you shot the hijacker, which gives you some pretty strong credentials with them. Not just because you shot him, but also because you are allowed to have a gun on base. They don't know you are CIA, and they don't need to know that either."

"Okay, who here is in charge of this?"

"Colonel Abbott. It turns out he knows a lot of people and is highly respected. So he's moving it along on that end. The DCI's office is 100% behind it here though they don't know about the hijacker. For some reason the FBI Director called me to confirm that you were still alive. I tried to finesse him, but he said, he'd call back in a conference call with the DCI if I felt that was necessary. I did. They did. You have connections in places I don't understand. I'd sure like to know what's behind this cabinet level support you seem to have. I answered all their questions; they didn't answer any of mine."

"I'll explain, or you can go see Joan. I have a feeling this could get all out of control really quickly. Calder, please go see Joan and have her tell you about Carlisle and Philly. She'll know what that means. But wait till this plane is off the ground, and we have a solid plan to get me in from the cold, okay?"

"Yes. I'm not leaving Langley until you are back here. I'll be on this number. Let me know when you've accepted the crew and text me with wheels up."

"WILCO." She ended the call confused and frustrated with more questions than answers. _Crap, what does the FBI Director have at stake in this? I sure hope he isn't the missing link. I like the guy. He and I buried Ross in that meeting. He backed my FBI NOC all the way. I know he appreciates what I did in Philly. Oh God, I hope he doesn't call Megan and Jo. Or ... maybe that's a good thing if he does. It will save me showing up on their doorstep. I wonder if they can get Danielle to DC? Getting out of this plane to go to her house for a reunion is way too much exposure for me and her family. I'll call Calder about that as soon as we are in the air out of here. I could use a day or so to get ready for that meeting anyway. Auggie, Joan, and I can meet her. I wonder if she's met Calder. _

Shortly after her phone call ended Colonel Abbott came back and asked, "Do you want to meet the crew now and then go on their preflight inspection of the plane with them?"

"Yes. Definitely. Can you get me something military looking to wear?"

"I can get you a field jacket and put the Seals around you. Anything else will take too long."

"Okay."

"Follow me," and he preceded her out into the main cabin where she found herself the center of attention. It was getting crowded with her, Fred, the three Seals and their gear, and the three pilots. Fred introduced her first saying, "Gentlemen, this is your passenger. You may call her Matrix. Our mission is to deliver her to Langley alive. Your mission is to get all of us to an airport near Langley in one piece. Matrix, this is our pilot team, Navy Commander Kevin Cameron and Air Force Captains Jack Kirkpatrick, and Phillip Ronson."

Annie looked carefully at them but didn't see anything other than curiosity in their expressions. Cameron was slightly rumpled, a good four or five inches taller than her, slightly gray around the fringes, probably early forties, older than she'd expected him to be, and she decided he was where he was because he didn't want to give up flying. The two Air Force Captains were about her height, slim, remarkably young looking, clean shaven with short blond hair in clean pressed utilities. They could have been brothers. She asked, "May I see your Military ID please?" They were apparently expecting that because they all had them in shirt pockets. She took each ID and inspected it. She held each of them up to the light to ensure they hadn't been doctored. She was an expert at doctoring any form of identification including passports. When she was done she was satisfied they were all legitimate.

She gave them a smile as she handed back the last one and said, "Thank you, gentlemen. I need to be very careful. I know you are probably curious about who I am and why I'm here. I'm sorry to say I won't be doing anything to alleviate that curiosity. You may well put it together sometime after the flight is over. If you do, you would be well advised to keep any conclusions private. You good with that?" She looked from one to the other. When they all nodded their agreement, she continued, "Thanks guys. I'll accompany you while you preflight this bird, and then we can get going."

The three pilots stood up and headed for the exit. After they left, Annie turned her attention to Chief Peters and said, "Master Chief, I'll leave the details to you. I'll follow them."

"I'll follow you." Then he turned to the others and said, "Maxwell, Lewis, cover her flanks. I've got the rear."

"Aye aye Master Chief."

Chief Maxwell turned to Annie and said, "Matrix, lead on."

Annie didn't know what she was searching for, but she watched the three pilots like a hawk throughout the preflight. She didn't see reactions that suggested anything other than everything was normal. She also looked at everything herself, trying to find anything that was out of place or didn't fit. She saw nothing that was suspicious. Most important, she saw no reaction on any of the pilots' faces that caused her to suspect they saw anything unusual. When they'd finished the walk around, she stopped the pilots at the foot of the stairs and asked, "Was there anything, anything at all, that didn't look routine; that was in anyway okay but different from what was expected?"

One of the Air Force pilots said, "No, Ma'am."

Commander Cameron said, "I agree. It all looked normal to me. Nothing unusual at all."

"Is that normal. Is a plane always perfect? Or is this one too clean, too perfect?"

Commander Cameron replied for all of them and said, "This one is cleaner than usual, but it's also a rather low flight hours airframe. It only has a little over 500 hours total time on it. That's still new car smell for an aircraft. No leaks, no sign of repair. It should look like new. And it does. It should run and fly like new, too."

"Thanks. I'm a bit leery of this whole thing. But if you are good with it, so am I. May I look over your shoulder when you do the cockpit check?"

The three pilots looked at each other, back at her and nodded. The Commander spoke for them and said, "Sure. But we need to have you out of there when we start to taxi."

"No problem. Thanks. After you." She pointed up the stairs, then turned to Chief Peters and said, with a bit of a smile, "Master Chief, I'm good to do this on my own two feet." He nodded and made a gallant gesture, but when she started up the steps, lanky Lewis was right behind her. He was more than a step taller, so he had her well shielded all the way up to the cabin door.

She waited till the hatch was closed then said, "Please give me all your phones and other electronic devices: iPads, pagers, phones, anything electronic. You'll get them all back at the end of the flight, but I have good reason for asking." To their credit, none of them objected. The Colonel got a bag from the galley, and they all placed their phones in it.

Annie said, "Thank you. I realize it's insulting, but I had to do that."

The rest of the takeoff process went as planned. When they were finally leveled off at cruising altitude tentatively in route to Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Annie said to Colonel Abbott, "I'm going to read in Chief Peter's team and Commander Cameron. You're welcome to sit in."

"I'll just listen. I think I already know more than you will tell them anyway."

"Okay." She stood up and said, "Guys, I have permission to read you in so you know what you're up against. If you'd come back and take seats so I can talk to all of you at once, I'd appreciate it."

The four men all looked surprised, but as one they rose from their seats and made their way back to what was clearly a discussion area with couches and a couple of chairs. Annie took one of the chairs; Colonel Abbott took the other. Peters, and Cameron sat on one couch, Maxwell and Lewis on the other.

Once situated they looked expectantly at her, so she started by saying, "What I'm going to tell you is classified. If you reveal it to unauthorized persons, including the other two pilots, you can be Court Marshaled. I realize you guys see classified stuff all the time, but am I clear?"

They answered in a chorus, "Yes, ma'am."

"You may have seen the news that a former CIA Director of Clandestine Service was found dead, face down in a back alley in Hong Kong, with two bullets in his heart. Accompanying that is the story about him being the biggest traitor in CIA history. All that is true if somewhat understated. The man was also a ruthless murderer who cost the lives of a number of innocent people." She could see astonishment on the faces of the four men, so she said, "You may reasonably wonder why I'm telling you this. My new boss, my handler, and I managed to deprive him of all his stolen assets. We captured and turned a top-level MSS executive who worked with him.

"Using information from the asset, and some other methods, I located him in that alley and put two bullets in this his heart because it was the only way to stop him from going to the Chinese for asylum."

Commander Cameron said, "Wow!"

Chief Peters added, "Jeezzzus, Matrix, you've had a rough week. What can we do to help?"

"You can't talk about this, Commander, not to anyone, even if it all comes out in the paper. You all get that, right?"

They all nodded, but she could see they were barely breathing. She continued, "That is all classified, but it's all background. History. What comes next is time sensitive real time operational intelligence analysis, and that is as classified as it gets." She looked each of them in the eye; they nodded with rapt attention, so she continued, "The reason I need protection is because Henry wasn't the top of the food chain. He may have had one or more high level co-conspirators. The evidence of that is the hijacker I shot just before this plane was to leave with the Colonel and me on board. As you can see from what happened before he was killed, there is absolutely no way Henry could have planned that. That hijacking was planned and implemented between the time Henry was killed and when I landed at Kadena just under twenty hours later."

Chief Peters asked, "Could it have been one of his direct reports at Lexington Global?"

"That's a possibility I haven't eliminated."

She could see the Master Chief getting ready to ask another question and said, "With all due respect, Master Chief, I didn't tell you this to nurture speculation. I told you so you have some idea of the well financed and ruthless threat level your team is facing on my behalf, and so that Commander Cameron is hyper alert to the condition of the plane just in case the hijacker was only plan A and they had a plan B that involved the plane. It seems unlikely given the time frame, but these people were picked by Henry, and he was utterly ruthless."

Cameron said, "That's why you wanted to go on the walk around pre-flight and watch the start up in the cockpit. You weren't looking at the plane or gages, you were watching us because you are a trained spy and figured you could read us and learn if anything was suspicious or one of us reacted anomalously?"

"Exactly."

"Wow."

Peters added, "I should have known for sure when you took out that hijacker on your own based on seeing only one head in the cockpit. Why didn't you alert us?"

"I ... I should have, Chief. I was already certain I could trust you and your team. It's not an excuse, but by way of explanation, I've gotten so used to operating alone that it's become instinctive. Auggie ... uh ... my handler and I almost read each other's minds, other people, not so much."

"Your handler. You had a handler through all this? Auggie? I know an Auggie. A Captain August Anderson. We met in Iraq on a joint mission. Scary smart and tough as nails. Amazing at hand-to-hand combat. But he was blinded when he was double crossed by a guy that made the top five on the most wanted terrorist list."

"It's a small world Master Chief."

He stared at her open mouthed, closed it, swallowed and then asked, "Captain Anderson is your handler?"

"Yes. Best one on the planet."

"That explains so many things ..." He apparently picked up on her change of expression and negative headshake, so he stopped and finished with, "You are really lucky to have him."

"I know. I wish he was in my ear right now."

"We got your six, Matrix," Cameron said and the others nodded in agreement.

"Thanks." She took a moment to gather her thoughts then continued, "We're flying to Hawaii but landing at an airport I'll pick when we are about two hours out. My choice will be communicated to you, Commander, when you really need to know where we are landing. Not before. On that basis, I think we should be relatively safe while we are there because there are fifteen civilian airfields, seven government/military airfields, and one private airfield. I looked it up using my phone while we were in Kadena. We have permission to land at any of them. Being ready with a viable assassination plan for all those locations would be nearly impossible. But, as documented by the attempted hijacking, I represent a huge threat to somebody, and I'm determined to stay on the green side of the grass. You guys good with that?"

Cameron, Peters, Maxwell, and Lewis all said, "Booyeah!" together as if they'd rehearsed it. None of them cracked a smile. They were dead serious, and she knew she had them all on her team.

"Thanks guys. Now, please don't think me rude, but I want to meet with Colonel Abbott and Chief Peters in that office back there."

* * *

**EN:** I had a PM question about the # # # that appears before the second and subsequent scene headings in a chapter. They are the demarcation used by my writing software, WriteWay-Professional (WWP), to break a chapter into it's scenes when it's imported. I keep the in work story in WWP. The chapter headings and scene headings form the outline to start with, then the timeline as the story gets well into the rough draft stage. I can rearrange chapters and scenes by clicking and dragging. It imports and exports seamlessly to MS-WORD. So I do mid to final editing in WORD because it has a better spelling checker and the reference facility for word meaning, and then re-import the updated chapter into WWP so at any time I have the whole story as one document and can navigate to anyplace in it with a simple scroll and mouse click. At my age, it's better than trying to remember where everything is! Sorry if that's TMI but it's why the # # # is there. It also allows me to know how long the story is (90,392 words as of this moment), and drag scenes forward and backward to balance chapter length when that's compatible with how I want to tell the story and where I want to end a chapter.


	3. C3, Resurrection Isn't for Wimps - 3

**AN: **Once again many thanks to my mentors, Patricia Louise, Gwynne, and AleciaB, for their help. The weather here is miserable. I decided to publish an extra chapter this week. That would be this one. The next one will be out Friday.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**Resurrection Isn't for Wimps - Part 3**

**00:20 AM Day 2 Hong Kong Time, 11:20 AM Day 1 DC Time, Inbound over the Pacific two-hundred miles from Hawaii:**

Annie had taken a two-hour nap on the couch in the cabin. When Chief Peters saw her nodding off, he said, "Go ahead and get some sleep. I'll be right here."

She snapped back to full consciousness sometime later when she heard the sound of Chief Peter's voice and felt his hand gently move her foot. This time she didn't react violently, but when her eyes opened, she was fully alert and unblinking. Apparently, that startled him because he flinched back a little. She said, "Thanks, Chief. What's the situation?"

Peter's looked at Commander Cameron who said, "I really need to know where we are going. We are about fifty minutes from the islands; I need to make some plans and establish contact with Honolulu Center Approach control in the next few minutes. They are going to want to know exactly where we are going."

Annie sat up, looked at him for a minute and then said, "Chief, Commander, Colonel, please follow me," and led them back to the office in the rear of the plane. When they had all crowded into the small office she said, "Commander, do you have any doubts about either of the other pilots?"

"No doubts. Nothing, not one action, or word on their part has been out of the ordinary, or even on the edge of ordinary. They did ask if you were special in some way. The answer to that is obvious. I just told them you have to be special because we're all here, and you are the reason why."

"Perfect. That removes an unknown. Do you have a map showing airports or something that we can use?"

"Yes. I'll be right back with it; it's in the cockpit."

When he left, she turned to the other two and asked, "Any preferences?"

Chief Peters said, "There is a Marine Corps Base on Oahu that has an airstrip. I'd think it would be really difficult to infiltrate it to the point someone could sabotage our plane or attack us, at least on short notice. I don't know how much runway we need, but they get some pretty hefty cargo planes in and out of there."

Colonel Abbott said, "I was thinking of the same place. If I remember right, the airstrip is Kaneohe Bay. It's either in or adjacent to Honolulu so anything we might need we can get quickly. I had a Colonel from there in one of my last classes at the War College, third Marine Regiment if I remember correctly. They also have a Combat Logistics Battalion there. That would be about perfect."

"Where wouldn't you go?"

The men's eyebrows raised a fraction of an inch, and then they thought for a while. Colonel Abbott spoke first, "I'd probably avoid the commercial service primary airports. Hilo, Honolulu, Kona International, Molokai, etc."

"Why?"

"Because there are more commercial interests around them, and a company like Lexington Global would be more likely to have some influence or contacts in the area."

"Thanks. Chief?"

"This isn't my area of expertise at all, but I'd stay away from general aviation airports. This plane would attract too much attention there. I'm a fan of the gray man sort of approach. That's-"

"I know exactly what that is. I lived the gray woman for the last several months. I'm really a blond."

"Oh ... sorry."

"Don't be. I'm really good at being underestimated. It's a strength of mine."

"Yeah, it is."

Just then, Commander Cameron reentered the room and said, "I have the sectional for that area and the airport directory."

Annie asked, "Can you get this plane safely into and out of the Marine Corps Air Station at Kaneohe Bay?"

"I've landed the Grumman there twice; I think the runway is just under eight thousand feet." He thought a few seconds and then opened the spiral bound book he was carrying. "Yeah, here it is. One runway, four twenty two, about seventy-eight hundred feet long. I can get in there and out again if you can get us permission to land. That's strictly a military only airport."

"Give me a minute." Annie pulled out her burner phone and had no signal. She frowned at it and then said, "I can't get in touch with Langley. I don't want to do this over the radio to Honolulu Center."

Commander Cameron said, "I have an encrypted sat phone in that bag of phones you collected. It's not perfect, but it's better than the radio in terms of security. Unless Lexington Global can decrypt sat phone traffic, you should be secure."

Annie grinned at him, pulled the bag of phones out from under the desk, and handed it to him. "Which one is it?"

He looked in the bag for a few seconds and then pulled it out. She made a note on a piece of paper and passed it to him. "Please call that number. When it rings, but before it answers, pass me the phone."

He looked at her with some skepticism and went through the process to establish an encrypted link to the satellite, then dialed the number. She could tell when it started to ring by the look on his face, and he immediately passed her the phone.

She waited until a dispassionate voice said, "Protocol 4230."

"Clover."

"Identify."

"Matrix."

"Request."

"Calder Michaels, P10."

"Stand by."

While she was waiting, Annie asked the Commander, "How long until we will be in their pattern?"

He looked at his watch and said, "About forty minutes."

Annie waited what seemed like forever but was really only about six minutes, and then she heard, "Walker?"

"Yes. Please get us permission to land at MCAS Kaneohe Bay."

"When?"

"We'll enter the pattern thirty-four minutes from now. We'll need to refuel. I'd prefer the base be on lockdown between now and when we are wheels up out of there, but that's probably not going to happen, though it is dark out, so maybe it could."

"Is there a backup airport close by?"

Annie turned to Cameron and asked, "Is there a backup airport nearby?"

Then she looked at the sectional where Cameron was pointing and said, "Yes, Honolulu International. I'd like to avoid that if I can. Based on what happened at Kadena ..."

"Understood. Assume you can land. I'll get on it."

"Roger, out." She ended the call, turned to Commander Cameron and said, "Please make it happen."

"Aye aye, ma'am." After which he did an about face and left.

She turned to Chief Peters and said, "I hope this is okay with you. I figured a possibly locked down air base that looks out of sniper range from anyplace would be good for your mission."

"Works great for me. We'll deploy outside the plane out of sight. If you trust me with a phone, I can communicate with the rest of my team with hand signals."

"Master Chief, I trust you. Find your phone in here and keep it on you."

"Thanks. Time to update my team. I'll see if the cockpit crew has a picture of that airport."

When he was gone, Annie turned to Colonel Abbott and said, "You were pretty quiet during all that. Any input?"

"You're doing just fine. Honestly, I think it's a really good choice."

"You having fun?"

He grinned and said, "Yes, God forgive me, but I am. I'm feeling alive for the first time in years. I'll be glad to get back to Barb and our peaceful retired life, but the chance to work with you on a mission, even just the mission mop up, isn't something I'd ever thought I'd get to do, and yet here it is. I'm just sorry it's taken such a toll on you. It isn't over yet, and I'm enjoying my little part in it. Annie, I don't even feel guilty about it."

Annie stood up and said, "You shouldn't, Uncle Fred. Thanks for being here. Speaking of which, how did you get here?"

"I got a call from Joan. She was still in the hospital room with her new baby boy and Arthur. She said she was going to ask for a huge favor on your behalf. I was astonished because I thought you were dead. She told me you weren't, and then said she was going to turn me over to a Calder Michaels. She declared that I could absolutely trust him because you did. I agreed, and he spoke up. Apparently, he was already on the line. Joan dropped off. He had me in the backseat of an FA18 out of Harrisburg to Travis Air Force Base outside of San Francisco two hours later.

"I was given a potty break, a sandwich, handed a package of papers and put in a leased A350 that flew me to Tokyo. They hustled me aboard this plane in Tokyo; we landed in Kadena and only had to wait about forty minutes for you to arrive. I don't know why we had to have a crew change, but we did. I apologize again for that screw up."

"We'd have had the problem even without a crew change. The new crew wasn't the problem. We're good, Uncle Fred."

"I hope so. Barb would never forgive me if I didn't bring you back."

"She knows I'm alive?"

"Yes, and my mission, but she knows she can't tell anybody including our daughter or Danielle."

"Good. I'm not sure when I'll be able to see her. My life is going to be out of my control once I land in DC. I don't know what the process is, if there even is one, or where it will spit me out. But I'll get there sooner or later."

"We'd love to have you and Auggie visit."

"Auggie and I have some issues we need to work through. I want us to do that. I love him to pieces, but this has been hard on both of us. And I'm not sure if he can love me anymore. I'm not even sure I can like myself."

"Why not?"

"I've become something I abhor, and I'm not sure how to deal with it."

"Annie, talk to me. I've pretty much done it all."

Annie hesitated. She drew a deep breath and started to turn away. Then she suddenly shook her head and turned back to speak rapid fire in a neutral tone, "I've turned into an assassin. I hunted Henry down in that alley and shot him while he stood there unarmed. I assassinated him, Uncle Fred. I always told myself I wouldn't do that, that I would only kill people in self-defense. I hunted him like an animal. I shot him down like a rabid dog. I don't like how that made me feel. It makes me want to throw up just to look at myself in the mirror."

"What option did you have?"

"Really, there was no option. It was kill him or let him go dump his brain to the Chinese in return for asylum. He'd already traded me to them. He'd watched me shot to death by Calder Michaels-"

"Calder shot you?"

"He helped me fake my death. He and two other people were the only ones that knew I was alive. Joan didn't find out until the day I left for China."

"Did Auggie know?"

"Yes, but we couldn't contact each other - it would have put him in too much danger."

"Danielle?"

"No. She still doesn't know I'm alive. I am planning to return to being as much of me as I can, or at least being what's left of what used to be me."

"Annie, I haven't been 'dead', but I've been to war. I think what you are experiencing is much like what happens to people when they go to war."

"That's what Auggie told me."

"Listen to him, Annie. We all did things in the war that we regret. I killed people who were just following orders and saw pictures of their wives and children in their wallets. I lost it more than once."

"Uncle Fred, Henry was awful, an inhuman monster. He told me we kept expecting him to be something different, but he wasn't different. He told me the story of the scorpion and the frog. He said the scorpion told the frog after stinging him, 'I'm a scorpion; it's my nature.' He was evil, Uncle Fred. It was his nature. He was going to continue to be evil until he died. The world would have had to keep looking over its shoulder to see if he was still coming, and he would have been. He had to die. I just wish it hadn't had to be me that did it."

"He isn't the first person you've killed-"

"There were twenty four others, Uncle Fred. I killed twenty-four other people. Shot most of them to death, but several I killed with my bare hands. Twelve of those about a month after we were at the Carlisle Restaurant."

"The Philadelphia warehouse was you?"

"Yes. I rescued an FBI agent that had been captured by a terrorist cell. How do you know about that?"

"I was called in to critique the FBI report. All names were redacted and codes used, but the agent that made the assault was described as ... well ... the description made me think of you."

"She was me."

"That didn't hit you as hard as shooting Henry, did it?"

"No, because they were trying to kill an FBI agent I knew. I couldn't let them do that. So I went after them in the only way she had any chance to live. I knew going in I had to take them out, kill them, one at a time without the others knowing, or they'd have killed her before I could get to her. That's why the SWAT team couldn't go in there. Their rules of engagement wouldn't have let them do what I did. They'd have had to alert the terrorists that they were coming, and Jo'd have been dead a few seconds later. Terrorists don't negotiate for their lives. Their lives are forfeit as a condition of employment so to speak. They are willing to die, so conventional tactics based on the assumption that the hostage holder wants to live are utterly useless, a prescription for failure at least as far as the hostage is concerned. You and I know that. I succeeded, but it was a slaughter house in there."

"The report said it was a female, counter terrorist specialist, FBI agent that took them down, no mention of the CIA as other than an information source."

"That was my NOC. I was undercover as an FBI agent. I hope those credentials are still good. It's a great cover for a CIA officer who is working against terrorists that have bases in country."

"What I don't understand is why the two FBI agents were in there to start with. The task force lead should have gone in there with the HRT and locked the place down. They had tons of evidence in hand from bugs that were planted over a week before."

"Bingo. Major mistake, but it was a system failure. The immediate cause was an FBI SSAIC who was a hard-core, vulnerable, narcissist. The man was out of control, drinking his own Kool-Aid, doing it, and swearing to it. He ended up out of a job with a short sentence based on an undeserved plea agreement. The root cause was the management failure of those who promoted him. I think they should have been fired too. They were behind the plea agreement. I'm pretty sure if it had gone to trial they would have been, at least, forced to resign. His history before promotion clearly showed the man was a problem waiting to happen, and it did the first time he was put in charge of an anti-terrorist operation."

Just then, the plane's intercom came on, and Commander Cameron said, "We're go for landing. Strap in. We're landing in ten minutes, entering the pattern now. We'll be met by a Marine Security team who will protect the plane while it's refueled."

Annie looked at the Colonel, gave him a small smile, and said, "Thanks for the talk. It helped. Now we better go strap in. Don't want to piss off the crew."

He grinned back and said, "That smile, tiny as it was, was worth a million bucks. After you."

She nodded her head and took the lead back to the main cabin. She saw Chief Peters and his team in seats nearest the door. She shot him an inquiring look, and he said, "I've been synched up with the Marines. They have a Force Recon platoon on security patrol. We're on the same page. I'll stay in the plane with you; Max and Lew will be down on the tarmac in full gear at the base of the ramp. The Marines will form a thirty yard defensive perimeter with vehicles and troops in full combat gear."

"Force Recon? Seals? Good grief. This is just me, not a member of congress."

"They wouldn't come out for a member of congress. You, on the other hand, you get the works."

"What do they know?"

"They have a smart base commander. He connected the dots. The platoon leader has been told whoever saved the country from more of Henry Wilcox is on this plane, and he's determined that they make it off his base alive."

"I better stay away from windows or they will rethink it."

"Lady, don't sell yourself short or put yourself down in my presence. Ever. That diminishes both of us."

Annie was startled by his response and suddenly saw the truth of it. She looked him right in the eye and said, "Thanks for that. I had it coming, and you just helped me more than you will ever know."

"How?"

"You just gave me some of my self-respect back."

Annie appreciated his effort to lighten the conversation when he replied, "I should hang out a shingle?"

"I don't know about that, but between you and Uncle Fred, I think I'm going to be fine. The shrink will have a field day with me, but I can handle that as long as I have my self-respect, and now I do."

She felt the wheels hit the tarmac and said, "Okay, you're on."

# # #

**5:30 AM Day 2, Approaching Andrews Air Force Base, Virginia:**

Annie was awake as they entered the pattern for Andrews Air Force Base. Commander Cameron and one of the Air Force pilots were in the cockpit; the third pilot was sound asleep on the cot they'd found in the back of the plane. Annie was hungry. The stopover at Travis Air Force Base by San Francisco had gotten them food and a chance to actually get off the plane and walk around because they had a rather safe place to park it while it was refueled. Commander Cameron said they were pushing it with flying hours and managed to convince Annie to let the Air Force pilots be rotated out with two new ones who could do the full leg from Travis to Andrews. She'd agreed as long as he stayed on board to be the aircraft commander. Apparently, that caused the new pilots some consternation because they called their CO to protest. But it had been straightened out when the two new pilots got a phone call that caused them to stand at attention while they spoke on the phone. When the conversation was over, the two new pilots were really cooperative and willing to do about anything to make whoever was on the phone happy.

Practically non-stop from the carrier to Andrews was a heck of a trip for the Commander though he'd left the carrier completely rested. The two Air Force pilots had been fully rested when they left Kadena. The two new ones were fully rested. It hadn't been easy on Annie either. She knew the stress was not going to decrease in any significant way until she was inside the building at Langley. Even more unnerving was the thought that when it did ease off to normal the nightmares would start in earnest and last for a while. She hoped to bridge the gap with Auggie before that started.

Once they were airborne, Annie asked Commander Cameron, "Who was on the phone to the two pilots?"

"God."

"Seriously?"

"Well, General Mark A. Welsh III, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, was God as far as they were concerned."

"Holy crap, somebody at Langley is big footing all over the place. I'm going to owe them for the rest of my life."

"No, you don't, and won't. They owe you, and they bloody well know it.

"Bottom line: Lady, you made 'hero' look easy. I know you don't feel that way; people like you never do, but I'm damn proud to have had even this little part in getting you home in one piece. So are Command Master Chief Peters and his Seal team.

"I'm talking out of school here, but Peters has two Navy Crosses and a purple heart. He doesn't mention it. But everybody on the carrier knows it. His dress blues are covered with fruit salad. The Admiral on the carrier invites him to dinner every couple of months just to be in his company. He barely tolerates it. I've never met anybody else with two Navy Crosses. No idea what he did to get them, though he'll tell you it was nothing compared to what you did. But probably the most proud of you is Colonel Abbott. According to Peters, Abbott is in the contest for toughest son-of-a-bitch on the planet. So apparently is your handler, Auggie."

"Auggie and I were a couple until this tore us apart. I hope we can find our way back to each other."

Annie was jerked out of her memory of the earlier conversation by Colonel Abbott when he said, "Annie, I'm pretty sure we're going our separate ways a couple of minutes after this plane comes to a stop and the ramp goes down. So let me take this moment to say thank you for your service and invite you to come up and spend a weekend with Barb and I. No shoptalk, nothing but good times and fun. Bring Auggie, or not. Or a friend, or friends. No pressure. We're good either way. But we'd be delighted to spend some normal folks time with you. You are safe with us."

Annie wrapped her arms around him and said, "Thank Aunt Barb for letting you come and bring me in. I was truly out in the cold. Between you and Commander Cameron, I think I'm already starting to heal."

"Any time, Annie. If I may, one bit of advice?"

Annie looked hard at him for a minute and saw nothing but sincere friendship, so she said, "I'm listening."

"Be willing to accept earned praise even if you aren't comfortable with it for now. An action denied can never be converted to acceptance. You will eventually see what you've done as worthy, a world class example of the greater good, but if you deny it to start with, others will always deny it."

"Thanks, Uncle Fred. I'm working on it. I don't like myself as an assassin, but I see your point."

One of the Air Force pilots came on the PA system and said, "We're in the pattern for Andrews cleared to land on a straight in approach. Strap yourselves in for landing."

Chief Peters came up to Annie and said, "Matrix, I need to speak to you alone; can we take a seat in the back?"

Annie's face must have betrayed her curiosity because he said, "I'd like to share an experience that may help you in the next few days."

"Okay, but we need to hurry."

A minute later, they had both found seats in the office and their seat belts were latched. Annie turned to the Chief and said, "Go."

"You once said, call me Annie, so if I may, for purposes of this conversation, may I call you Annie?"

"Yes."

"Annie, I did a couple of things in my career that were viewed as worthy by my chain-of-command. The first time I made the mistake of being unwilling to accept praise gracefully. It didn't work out well for me. I made myself bitter and hard to live with.

"I didn't realize at the time that the praise, and the award, were more for them and society than for me. It was a way for society to set aside the guilt of its failure to act sooner, and it gave my chain-of-command a way to accept themselves as they were.

"The second time I accepted the praise gracefully. I cut off exaggeration, nipped it in the bud, but I took credit for what I did and refused to let others take credit for what they didn't do. I was calm about it. Polite about it, but didn't tolerate any bullshit. That worked well for me.

"My point is this, you have given a service to the country that dwarfs anything I did into insignificance." He apparently saw her start to object and said, "Annie, please hear me out." He waited until she nodded, then continued, "That's an example. Do yourself and all around you a service and accept earned praise with grace. You know what you accomplished. You could describe it in clinical terms, and it is still of profound significance. I'm pretty sure, based on only our short acquaintance, that what happened originated from plans and actions of your conception. Don't let anybody take that away from you and don't give it away by denying it. That does nobody any good."

Annie realized he was done and that it was maybe the longest speech he'd ever given. "Thank you. I've gotten the same message from Colonel Abbott. I suspect Auggie will agree with you."

"Auggie will definitely agree. Speaking of Auggie, please tell him Chief Jed Peters sends his regards."

"I will." She glanced out the window and said, "I think we're almost there. I'd like to get back up to the front so I can thank your team as they disembark for the long flight back."

They both stood up, and Annie said, "Thanks again, Jed Peters. I really appreciate your support." He offered his hand, and she took it. He led the way back to the main cabin where Annie worked through the busy group to stand near the exit.

The door to the flight compartment opened, so she turned and offered her hand to the pilots. They looked at her curiously; she hadn't met them before. She said, "Thanks for the nice safe ride."

The captain said, "You're welcome, whoever you are."

"I'm a grateful passenger. Thanks again."

The other pilot said, "You're welcome," as they shook hands."

She stood aside and let them by to go down the stairs. When she did, she saw Calder and Auggie over by a line of parked SUVs. She immediately turned to the cabin and said, "Master Chief Peters, there is someone you might want to say hello to over by those SUVs. I'll take him away, but you have a couple of minutes if you want them."

He ducked to look out the window, picked up his gear bag, and said, "Guys, let me outta here; I need to see an old friend." He literally ran down the ladder and headed toward Auggie. She saw Auggie flinch at first then return the man hug with gusto.

She turned back just as Chief Maxwell was about to leave and stopped him. "Chief Maxwell, thank you very much for your support. It's much appreciated."

"You're welcome. It was my pleasure. Be safe Mighty Mouse."

"Mighty Mouse?"

"We decided it was a better call sign than Matrix."

Annie chuckled and said, "I like it better too. Be safe."

Petty Officer Lewis, with whom she'd not shared a dozen words, was next. He tried to escape, but she stopped him and said, "Lew, if I may call you that, thank you very much for your support."

He looked her right in the eye and said, "You may, and thank you for what you did for our country." He handed her a card with three numbers on it and said, "You need us, you call, and we'll be there, where ever it is."

"Thanks, I know you would."

Commander Cameron was next and she said, "Thank you very much for your wise counsel. Not surprisingly, you, Peters, and Colonel Abbott agree completely. I'll try very hard to follow your advice."

"You're welcome. Did Max tell you our nick name for you?"

"He did."

"You need us, you use that name, and we'll be there."

"Thanks. That means a lot to me. In our business, you are defined by your friendships."

As he turned to leave, Colonel Abbott said, "Thanks for what you did, Annie. We'll probably see it at the War College as a case study, heavily redacted, but I'll read it with pride. I usually get called in to take part in the analysis. I won't recuse myself even though I know you. I'll give Barb your love. Now I think you better get down there before Auggie comes up here and drags you off the plane."

Annie turned and saw Auggie looking frustrated. She said, "Tell him I'm coming. I just need to grab my coat. It's all I have."

"Your ID package is in your coat pocket. You might want to know your name."

"Did you look at it?" When he nodded she continued, "What does it say?"

"Anne Catherine Walker."

* * *

**EN:** Thank you for reading. Please leave a note with your thoughts about the chapter and the story in general. That's how I learn.


	4. Return to Langley - Part 1

**AN:** To reviewer Belle: Thank you very much for the comment on tech. detail. I'm glad it's improving but seen as contributing to the story. I include the tech detail because I think it adds verisimilitude to the story. I don't want a story to ever require 'magic' to make the plot work. No boxes that say, "Put magic here," are allowed in the plot flow chart. (Yes, I do plot flow charts. I blame it on my engineering gene.) What I do put in is still just the tip of the iceberg. I don't like to write 'mush', so I go for the plot and aspire to make the characters 3D instead of cardboard cutouts. I'm doing some experiments with that in how this story is told.

Thank you very much to AleciaB, Gwynne, and Patricia Louise for their help and suggestions.

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**Return to Langley - Part 1**

**6:30 AM Day 2, About to deplane at Andrews Air Force Base:**

Annie went back into the plane and took a quick look around to make sure she hadn't left anything behind. She settled her gun to make sure it was out of sight and then returned to the door of the plane. By then Calder was half way up the ramp. He stopped when he saw her and said, "Welcome back, Walker."

"Thanks, Calder. You, Joan, Auggie, and I need to talk. Like when can we set that up? Sooner is better."

"Whoa girl, you aren't even back alive, at least not officially. We need to do some housekeeping before you jump into the fray."

"If we don't meet, there is a good chance you won't need to do the housekeeping. I'm still a target."

"I know that, but we can keep you at Langley-"

"Calder, unless you chain me to an eyebolt in the basement floor, I won't stay there if we aren't working to eliminate the threat, and you know it, so can we meet?"

He sighed and said, "Yeah, I'll set it up. Anything else?"

"A request." Calder looked askance at her and raised his eyebrows a fraction of a millimeter, so she continued, "I'd like to have Danielle flown here on some pretext or other so I can meet with her in the civilian conference room at Langley. She'll have fewer options to avoid me until I can get the story out. Is that possible?"

"Definitely. That had occurred to me as well. She's due in town tomorrow to finish cleaning out her house and your apartment there. It's been sold. I can arrange to bring her into Langley. I'll use the excuse that it's to clean up some final detail paperwork related to you. That work?"

"Yes. Now I better get down there, Auggie looks like he's about to explode."

She followed Calder down the ramp to meet with a very concerned looking Auggie. She wasn't sure she was ready for this, but she returned his hug with an extra squeeze that was returned with a vigor that made her grunt with distress, so she took his hand rather than offer her traditional sighted guide role as they walked toward the line of waiting SUVs. She turned to Calder who was close behind them and said, "I want the third vehicle in line."

"We had you planned for number two."

"New plan. And I want to be in the front seat. You and Auggie can ride in back. Who's the driver?"

"Agency security staff."

"Calder, would you drive, please. Just you, I, and Auggie in that car? I'll ride shotgun. I don't trust anybody else that's here right now."

Annie turned to watch his reaction and saw Calder frown, but he said, "Wait here." Annie stopped still about twenty yards from the waiting line of cars. Calder continued, "I'll go make that happen."

Annie stood next to Auggie who had automatically shifted his grip to her arm so she could better serve as a sighted guide. She asked, "You agree?"

He turned to her and said in a very low voice, "Yes. Are you going to ask him to break out of the convoy and take a separate route to Langley?"

"Yes, I am. Actually I was going to ask that all the vehicles take separate routes."

"Good. You've figured it out?"

She smiled to herself. _He isn't talking about the route - he's talking about Henry's co-conspirator. Auggie and I are so in synch it's almost scary. _She gave his hand an affectionate squeeze and replied, "Yeah. It seemed obvious to me. I just don't know who. But I'd be astonished if Joan and/or Arthur haven't met the person or persons we are after. They just don't suspect them of anything."

"Profile."

"I have one, but not now. Right now I have to survive to get inside Langley, and I need Calder's help to do it."

"Is Peters still around?"

"I don't see him. Why?"

"We could use someone like him with us if we get attacked."

"I agree, but frankly, if they succeed in attacking us they will win regardless. All they have to do is destroy the vehicle with me in it. Our only defense is escape and evade. Hopefully they haven't had time to set anything up, but I wouldn't bet on it. They've had longer since the first attempt than they had before it. The problem is that we are going to Langley, which limits our options. We are between two big hangars which means that we are invisible from outside the base, but once we are on the road, we're in the open."

Auggie thought for a second, and then said, "How well does Calder know the roads around here?"

"I don't know. He's lived in Columbia for quite a few years. I'll ask him."

They stood for another minute before Annie saw the driver leave one of the cars and get in the one in front of it. Calder turned and waved for them to join him. Annie said, "Calder's waving us over," and started walking. When they got to the car, she had Auggie get in the rear seat on the passenger's side, turned to Calder, and said, "Don't get upset, but how well do you know the roads around here?"

"I grew up about two miles away from here. This is my backyard."

"Then keep us on back roads where you can clear our tail and take random paths at the legal speed limit. I don't want to attract attention, and I want the other three cars to break off and proceed independently."

"I just gave the same instructions to the other drivers. The number two car will take the expressway; the others will be on surface streets. It's less than five miles as the crow flies. I'm planning to cross the base and leave through a side gate. All four cars are leaving through different little used gates."

"Thanks. Exactly what I would have asked for."

"Get in. We need to be gone."

# # #

**7:00 AM Day 2, Just Past Security in the Parking Lot at Langley:**

The trip to Langley through the early morning surface street traffic went uneventfully. None of the cars were attacked - though Annie learned later that the one on the expressway was followed for a short distance by a DC patrol car before pursuit was abandoned. Annie expected more trouble at the gate, but, apparently, they were expecting Calder because when he showed his ID, the guards looked in the vehicle, nodded, lowered the barrier, and waved them in.

Annie was surprised and said, "How did they just let a dead woman in the gate?"

"Security was given your picture; you were cleared by the DCI, and," he smiled, "the acting DCS was driving."

"What's next?"

"We are going to bring you in a seldom used entrance. Once you are in the building, your ID will be resurrected in the system. Auggie thinks that may be frustrated by a number of glitches because the programmers didn't design resurrection of deceased agents into the system, but I had a compartmentalized special team at work on it for the last two days while you made your way here. They don't know it is you, but they have been dry running the process, and they are pretty sure they can have you resurrected in about half an hour once they get your name. They will use a retinal scan and fingerprints to validate it's you. After that, we need ten minutes to get you a replacement badge and reactivate your passwords, though that part may not work as well. They are ninety percent certain you will have to put in new ones."

"You've been busy."

"You have no idea. You also have a lot to catch up on. We have a meeting scheduled you can't miss. It's in forty-six minutes, so we need to get in there. The ID stuff doesn't need to be completed before the meeting."

"With who?"

"People we, especially you, do not want to keep waiting."

"You won't tell me?"

"No, because I'm afraid you will bolt, and that would be an incredibly bad move. You need to keep these people, who are genuine fans of yours, on your side. Standing them up wouldn't be good at all."

"Calder ..." Annie growled.

"The DCI, DNI, FBI Director, Joan, and Arthur."

"And the DCS?"

"Yes, the acting DCS will be there."

"Head of the DPD, whoever that is?"

"There isn't one at the moment. I'm doing both jobs."

"This should be interesting. Do they know about the attack in Kadena?"

"I don't think so, but I'm not sure how much longer that will be true. That's why I pushed so hard to get this meeting right after you arrived."

"Thanks. You going to take my gun away?"

"No. I know better than to try that. You are going to clear it and give it to me. I need it for evidence anyway. The military police have asked for a specimen bullet from it to match with the ones they removed from the hijacker you shot."

"The Hong Kong Police?"

"They don't get shit from us."

"Good."

The conversation had lasted long enough to get them to their parking place. Annie got out; Calder got out and so did Auggie. Annie walked around the car, brushed Auggie's hand, and they followed Calder to the door. He punched in a security code and asked them to move to stand on a painted line. They did, waited a few seconds, and the door was opened by a security guard. They were admitted to an alcove; the door closed behind them. Then Calder said, "Annie, now is when you would give me the gun."

She looked at the security guard and said, "How do you want me to do this so you don't get nervous. I don't want to get shot."

He said, "I won't shoot you, Miss Walker. But I'd appreciate it if you would find a neutral direction to point it while you clear it."

Annie was surprised he knew who she was, but she pulled the Glock 26 out of the small of her back, ejected the clip, cleared the live round from the chamber, locked the slide open, then turned and offered the gun and magazine to Calder. He took it and handed it to the security guard. Then she said, "I have a spare magazine. I'm going to pull that out my pocket and hand it to Calder." When Calder and the security guard nodded, she gave him the spare magazine and the loose round from the chamber.

She didn't like the feeling that went with being disarmed, but for the moment, there wasn't anything she could do about it, and in her head, she knew she was probably as safe as she had ever been in her life. That was in her head. Her viscera were giving her a different message. Nobody had ever been assassinated inside Langley. At least, that was a fact as far as she knew - it was the CIA after all. She re-established her connection to Auggie and said, "Now what."

"Now we go through that door and go get you processed to reclaim your credentials; then we head for that meeting. We are running out of time."

# # #

**7:45 AM Day 2, Executive Conference Room, Langley:**

Retinal scan, blood sample and electronic fingerprint check completed, new credentials in hand, Annie, Auggie, and Calder walked through a part of the building she'd never been in. From the decorations, it was clearly the home of the powers-that-be. They came around a corner, and she and Auggie followed Calder into a room that had the DCI, DNI, FBI Director, Joan, and Arthur sitting along the sides of the conference table. Annie sensed they wanted her in the empty chair at the far end of the table. She was able to force Calder to pass behind Joan and Arthur so she'd be able to study the three directors from the front as she passed on her way there.

Joan stood as Auggie approached and said quietly, "Auggie, sit with me," and brushed his hand.

Annie heard Joan. She felt Auggie give her hand a squeeze; then he regretfully let his fingers slip away as he stayed behind to sit next to Joan.

She ignored her rising apprehension as her journey to the chair continued. She took advantage of the time to study the people she hadn't met before as she passed across the table from them. Her first observation: _the actual spies in the room, including Auggie, face the door. The bureaucrats and professional managers have their back to the door. I wonder where Calder will sit? Right now, its three spies facing three bureaucrats. _

_Why did the DCI, my Director, sit the farthest from the head of the table? Does he want to distance himself from me, hide behind the others, or did the others arrive first? He is the highest ranking CIA official present, nominally our collective boss. The DNI is his boss. Usually the senior official is at the head of the table or closest to the head of the table. It's just how it's done. Ramsey is the closest - is he the nominal head of this group in terms of group dynamics? I hope so. _Then she turned her attention to the man himself: _DCI,_ _Director Central Intelligence, Parker James, civilian, political appointee, professional government executive,_ she remembered. _Gray crew cut, heavy, oval, photogenic face that looks years younger in pictures than in person._ _He wears makeup for photo sessions, a lot of it. _She looked closer at his face:_ He has deep worry wrinkles in his forehead, smile/humor wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, but hard, deep set eyes half hidden behind fatty eyelids._ _The eyes give him away as a shrewd customer. So does the fact that he is clearly aware he is under my microscope._ She saw the DCI try to suck in his ample gut and nearly burst out laughing. _The man is so superficial,_ was her last thought before she turned her attention to the DNI who was next.

_Oh my gosh, the DNI has no clue he's being sized up, and, even more surprising, he's not assessing me back like the other two. The other two know and expect it, this guy is so impressed with himself it never occurs to him others might see him differently. Or he doesn't care? He's the senior guy present with nobody to impress?_

_DNI - Director of National Intelligence, Eugene York, political appointee, retired Admiral, time in theater but no actual combat experience on a fighting ship. Career in support organizations, _Annie remembered. _I can't remember reading an accurate position statement by him in the four years I've been at the CIA. This guy's the Teflon Don. Always wrong but still here and highly thought of by the administration and the press. He's always very aware of how things make him look - chameleon politics of the purely suck up sort. Make the boss look good today; the half-life of the countries memory isn't six months. Anything that happens after can be walked right over. Like Benghazi. Does it really matter? _She snorted to herself with disgust. _He's a big man. Going on huge, and soft. But not that soft. I remember reading he was a hero of the football team during his Naval Academy years. Lot of muscle gone to fat. He's the fleshy caricature of a retired admiral, but he is still far trimmer than the DCI. Both are a far cry from the trim, fit, quick, and compact Colonel Abbott or Chief Peters. _Uncomfortable with the fact that she thought about it out of habit her assessment continued,_ I could take him, either him or the DCI, bare handed if they didn't get a chance to grab hold of me, but not both at once unless I was lucky._

Her glance moved on to the next man and she thought, _So, look at you in person FBI Director Alexander Ramsey; you look pretty good_. _Better than your pictures. I know you're fifty-eight, but you look ten years younger. I bet you move well too. The dark red hair with almost no gray helps. So does the fact that you have a lot of it. Clear complexion, well groomed, you tan too; that's unusual for a dark red head with bright green eyes. You're no stranger to the gym either. It shows in the planes of your face and your posture. I know you like to be called 'Ramsey,' but if we were personal friends, I'd call you Alex. You are definitely the pick of this litter. I already know you aren't afraid to follow your convictions and smart enough to have some. I would like you even better as the DNI, but it's a huge advantage for me to have you here in any capacity. You didn't have to be here. But I'm glad you are. I owe you big time. _

_Okay, we have a potential DCI snake in the grass. Got to get the DNI to make him an ally. The DNI is a potential ally if he thinks it will make him and his boss, the President, look good. Ramsey is on the team. Hopefully he and I have them surrounded. _

A second later Calder had escorted her to the head of the table and clearly suggested she sit there. _I don't like this seat at all. I need to steer this meeting in my favor, and this chair won't let me do that. So, stay standing__, Walker__._

She put her hands solidly on the back of the chair and apparently conveyed by her action she was about to refuse to sit down, for the FBI director stood, moved in her direction with his hand out and said, "Miss Walker, sometimes known as anti-terrorist expert FBI Special Agent Betty Lou Tarantino; welcome. I am honored to meet one of my personal heroes."

Annie took the offered hand, but her head was a swirling cacophony of emotions at the greeting. She remembered the advice from Peters and Cameron and managed to say, "I ... uh ... thank you, sir. We had them surrounded."

He clearly recognized the reference because he chuckled at the memory of that phone call. Annie saw him look pointedly in the direction of the DCI and DNI before he said, "Yes, we did. But, actually, it is we who are thanking you." As he said that the DCI and, after a noticeable delay, the DNI took the cue, stood and moved to join them. Because of DNI's hesitation, the DCI gained a step, moved as if he wanted to make a good impression, and made it to her first.

Annie felt immense relief when the DCI shook hands with her and said, "Thank you very much for killing Henry. I realize that's blunt, but this is no time for political correctness or euphemisms. The man was a traitor. Director Ramsey and I agree without reservation that you did exactly what you had to do under the circumstances."

Annie noticed the DNI wasn't included but couldn't see any political guile on his face, in his eyes, or in the statement. At the same time, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Auggie wince when the DCI said it. She said, "Thank you." Auggie's wince focused her early warning system on the DCI.

The DNI, offered his hand, and when she took it briefly, she was repulsed by the limp grip. He said, "I ... agree."

The slight delay combined with the DCI's omission cued Annie that he, the DNI, might not be completely onboard, but his statement indicated he could probably be persuaded to join her. She needed total commitment from him. She decided not to challenge him as long as his opinions supported her, so she confidently replied, "Thank you, sir."

Annie saw Joan and Arthur beaming through tears. Then the DCI spoke again and asked, "We'd like you to tell us, briefly, in your own words, how you did this, and what the key elements were in your successful process. We aren't after a critique; we are after some education. In our conversation before you arrived, we decided we hadn't a clue how you did what you did. Can you tell us in a few words?"

"I would like to, but, unless you order me to do it, now isn't the time. There is something else I'd like to tell you if you are willing to listen."

She heard Calder, standing behind her, gasp, and saw Joan fighting to hide a smile. She was not surprised to learn she was comfortable with Calder standing behind her.

Annie received the her director's full attention when she said, "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

The DNI, nominally the senior official present said, somewhat condescendingly, "Of course. Please do."

Annie looked at the three of them. She didn't see any open hostility, but the DNI's face showed some reservation, and there was calculation in the eyes of the DCI. "Henry's dead," she said, "but it isn't over."

The DNI turned to face her squarely. His face registered surprise. While he framed a response, her eyes flicked over all three of their faces. Then, in an instant confirmation of her earlier assessment, the DNI made yet another erroneous position statement, "That's preposterous. What do you mean it's not over? How could it not be over if he's dead?"

Annie decided the man didn't understand that the difference between a decision and a guess was data, not logic. Nor did he understand that spies had an insatiable thirst for and acted on data whenever they could because substituting logic for data was a good way to get killed. She didn't rise to the bait and responded matter-of-factly, "There was an attempt on my life at Kadena. Someone had to have orchestrated that, and it could not have been Henry." She was relieved to see from their expressions that what she said was a total surprise. So she continued, "But it wasn't any of you."

The DNI, not smart enough to restrict himself to questions he knew the answer to said, "So. How do you _know_ there was an attempt on your life?"

Annie processed his reply in an instant. The emphasis on the word 'know' telegraphed his intent to back her down. _After all_, she thought, _how does one 'know' anything? Hard to prove 'know'. Bad tactic to use against a spy who lives or dies on facts. The man has a true gift for being the straight man._ She replied in the same level voice with zero hesitation, "The assassin knocked the pilots unconscious, tied and gagged one of them, and came after me with a twenty gage pump shotgun loaded with target birdshot. After he fired at me, and missed, I killed him. Seems like a no brainer to me ... sir."

The DNI looked past Annie at Calder who had quietly moved up to stand beside her and said, "That's exactly what happened, sir. I have it directly from Colonel Abbott and Command Master Chief Jed Peters of Seal Team Three who were on scene at the time. I also have pictures if you need them for proof."

Annie could see the DNI foolishly decide to call what he thought was Calder's bluff because the two people referenced weren't in the room when he snapped, "Show me." If she didn't consider him one of the good guys already Calder would have been anointed with that status right then because a few seconds later a composite of four pictures appeared on screen. One of Annie's pictures and two from the military police at Kadena clearly depicting a dead body. There was another one she hadn't known about, apparently from Colonel Abbott, which showed her, with the pistol still in her hand, and Chief Peters kneeling by the body in the plane. The four bullet holes in the assassin's chest and the puddle of blood on the floor showed clearly in that gruesome full color picture.

The DNI instantly backed down and said, "I ... uh ... we ... we didn't know ..." After an almost painful pause apparently while his brain processed the fact that he was now in full retreat, he said, "How did you know it wasn't any of us?"

Annie, again wanting to encourage desired responses replied, "You guys aren't that good at acting. You all showed elements of surprise that can't be faked including major iris movement."

The DNI said, "You saw that?"

Annie could see Joan and Arthur struggling to contain smiles and replied, "I'm a spy. It's what I do. I'm sure Calder saw it too." She added the latter to show solidarity with Calder and thank him for literally standing by her and anticipating the bureaucrats need for irrefutable proof of the obvious.

The DNI, nodded. When his glance shifted toward Calder, and he took a breath as if he was about to blast Calder. Annie, quicker than any of them, and unwilling to have any of her allies take any crap from anybody at the moment, interjected, "Sir! Do. Not. Attack. Calder. I could not have gotten to Henry without him. We worked together. He, Auggie, and I were a team. I know you don't like surprises, but this threat is real; it won't respond to spin, compromise, political posturing, bureaucratic bullshit, or bullying. And all of us in this room know the truth of that. I think it best if we put our heads together and reason, not react. Or not. Up to you. ... Sir."

After a total silence of what seemed like forever but was only about five seconds, Annie waited to let the DNI realize the ball was in his court. He partly recovered and said, "Who do you suspect?" His tone apparently anticipated some waffling on her part. He failed to appreciate she'd had nothing to do except think about it for the last thirty hours. And she had definitely thought about it.

"We are looking for someone of high government rank who has access to key information about the CIA but not necessarily day-to-day field operational data. This person has, or at least through Henry had, people on the inside of the CIA and maybe the DHS. I know of CIA examples for sure and maybe another-"

"Like who?" the DNI snapped, the demand for instant data an apparent effort to take control of the discussion.

Annie refused to allow him to rattle her and instantly replied with confidence, "Seth Newman, Deric Hughes, and Eric Braithwaite. But there are definitely others."

The DNI apparently decided that she'd make him look a fool if he continued to attack her because he relaxed his posture slightly and said, "Point made."

Then DNI turned to Joan and asked with a trace of awe, "Is she always like this?"

Joan said dryly, "No. She's usually more direct."

That reply apparently defused the situation because the DNI's shoulders dropped a little more, and Annie knew he'd surrendered, at least for the moment, when he said, "You're right, we don't need the history class at this point,; we need an action plan. What do you recommend?"

"I think you all know the name of the person or persons responsible. Probably almost on a first name basis with them. You trust them. They have classified access. Whoever it is runs in your circles, not mine. None of you knows this person is doing what they are doing, but you are acquainted with and interact with them frequently. They may even have leverage on you. I don't expect an answer or a name in real time, but I respectfully suggest you give permission for Calder, Auggie, me, and a couple of others, preferably from the FBI, to set up a compartmented team to pursue this." She stopped and waited while they resumed their seats. Annie chose to remain standing. So did Calder, who stood just to her right.

The DCI, more pragmatic than the DNI, said, "I only have a couple of minutes, then I need to leave for The Hill. What are we looking at?"

"The critical data for tactical purposes is who knew what immediately after I killed Henry and secondly, the flow of money out of the CIA."

The DCI asked, "Why do you think it's the money?" His focus on money, not information flow was significant to Annie. He didn't do it, but he was hiding something.

"Because we traced stolen CIA money directly to the attack in Copenhagen. Auggie, Calder, feel free to jump in if you have data to add." She could see the three senior officers had never considered the possibility of stolen CIA money funding the attack, so she said, "Whoever it is also had a mole, maybe an unwitting mole, that knew exactly when I was traveling and where I'd be. They had to know the escape plan in detail, in real time, to set up that hit on me. I did a tentative time line in my head, and they had eighteen to twenty hours from the time I walked out of that alley until I shot their assassin in the plane. So I'd look on that level as well - if you have time Director Ramsey, I'd suggest you root out every person that knew my itinerary and put them under a magnifying glass."

When they didn't respond she added, "The people I trust are, with a few exceptions, in this room. That said, in all candor it's fair to say the two of you," she pointed at the DCI, and DNI, "Worry me, a lot. Because by any objective measure, Henry was able to blind side you for at least months, if not years. He had to have your approval to be in the building. You gave your blessing to Braithwaite to bring him in and encouraged Braithwaite to work with him, to use his company, Lexington Global. Braithwaite was a total wuss, a pawn, and would never have done that on his own. That bothers me because I think you've probably already let the person we are after in as well. Newman, Braithwaite, and Hughes were a surprise to everybody but Henry."

The DCI apparently decided to challenge Annie and said, "Why do you think that?"

Auggie interjected with some heat, "Because we know you were personally instrumental in letting Henry in at the suggestion of Senator Pearson."

The DCI snapped his head in Auggie's direction and said, "Who told you that?"

"Braithwaite, just before I assaulted Henry for calling Annie a traitor. I had asked Braithwaite what Henry was doing in Langley. He told us Senator Pearson had gone to the DCI and suggested that since Henry was so familiar with Arthur and the crimes he'd committed, he could be of assistance. So he was given a green badge. With all due respect, Henry's power to orchestrate Annie's assassination from within the CIA was due to your approval, and your appointment of his puppet Braithwaite to DCS ... sir."

Calder said, "Braithwaite instructed me to work closely with Henry. Auggie suggested that I take advantage of that to drive a wedge between Braithwaite and Henry. I used Auggie's suggestion and told Henry that Braithwaite had opened a Blue File on him over martinis at a 'bonding' lunch."

The DCI looked stunned and said, "So when I honored the request from a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I was being played by Henry."

Annie fought to resist reacting to that new data from Auggie. But she and he hadn't had a chance to talk about it either, so she just said, "Yes, sir. The spy game is manipulating people for information. You were manipulated by a master through his senatorial puppet. Did you let any other people in at her request?"

The DCI looked embarrassed and finally said, "No. No, I didn't. But I was desperate. We'd had the leaks, the Lena Smith problem. I was getting pressure. She actually tried to frame you, Officer Walker, and I was about to de-commission you when Joan told Arthur she suspected Lena. Then we had the problem with the rogue agent that was Arthur's son-"

Before Arthur could jump in Annie interjected, "No! Teo was no traitor. I was there when Teo was shot. I was trying to prevent Deric Hughes from shooting down the helicopter in Copenhagen. I got Teo out of there, but Hughes shot him as we drove away. He died of the wound in the OR. He absolutely wasn't a rogue agent. He was a heroic deep cover agent working against rebels financed by the traitor Henry to perform terrorist acts against the United States. Henry's purpose for those acts was to make Arthur look bad. You were played continuously by Henry for the last three years, or more."

"But the pressure with Lena-"

Annie said, somewhat impatiently, "Forget. Lena. She's irrelevant. I have two bullet wounds in my chest from her in case you forgot. I was lying in a coma in a hospital while you were getting ready to throw me under a bus without letting me testify in my own behalf. You have no idea about pressure. You want pressure - try going in the field, in the dark; you put your life on the line with the full knowledge that your boss' boss, the head of your government agency and the man over him, will sell you out while you lie in a coma just to look better in the press. If anything goes wrong, you get the blame; meanwhile, these same men have been actively courting the enemy for the same reason. That was my exact situation for the last five months. It truly sucks. So I ask again, who else did you let in? "

The reply was a chastened, "Nobody."

"Did Senator Pearson ask for more people to be let in that were refused?"

"No."

"Good." She turned toward the others and said, "That's more than what I needed to get on the table, but I don't regret or retract any of it." When she realized her talk had left them speechless,she said, "I needed to get this out where it would receive immediate action. I have one caveat: whoever it is has moles and will see us coming if we aren't careful. The team needs to be completely compartmented; one-way firewalled off from the CIA and the FBI."

Arthur said, "Annie, about Lena-"

Annie snapped, "Later, Arthur. Now isn't the time." He swallowed and nodded. She was glad to see Joan take his hand and squeeze it as a show of support.

The DCI had recovered enough to ask in a tone of genuine curiosity, "Wow. I ... I ... apologize for all of that. I did it. Please believe me when I say it wasn't with malicious intent. Clearly we need to support you.-"

"Sir, all of you, if I may, we need your support right when it looks like we least deserve it. You have to be able to understand when it's legitimate and when someone has gone off the rails. But you really need to understand that you need real data. Vet the data. Use critical thinking skills. Basing our futures, our lives, on guesses is just wrong."

"I, we, at least the DNI and I, have a lot to learn. Along that line, moving forward, I have a question: I understand compartmented; what's a one-way firewall?"

"We can get to their servers, but neither they nor the CIA IT guys can get to the team's mission specific data servers."

The DNI, snapped out of his trance, turned to the DCI and, in his first show of decisiveness said, "Parker, give Walker, Michaels and Anderson whatever they ask for and stay the hell out of their way. They do it, we swear to it. I am not expecting periodic progress reports with fake progress; I don't want spin. I want results. This is the DPD's highest immediate priority. Michaels, Walker, here is my card. You may call this number," he wrote a number on the back of them, "at any time. It's my encrypted cell. I'll make sure you have access to it as soon as I get back to the office."

Annie decided to take advantage of the moment that had turned in her favor and this very rare meeting with all the power players present, and she said, "Thank you. If I might make a request of Director Ramsey, sir?"

The FBI Director replied, "Go."

"I'd like to borrow Agents Megan Burk, Jo Bell, and Vincent Rossabi. I know I can trust them, and they are, obviously, FBI. The CIA isn't an investigative agency. The FBI is. It's important to have admissible evidence at the end of this. With them on the team, the lead can transition to them for warrants to avoid jurisdiction and admissibility issues should there be a trial when it comes time for the take down."

"Yes, of course," Ramsey said, "but Burk and Bell are in Philadelphia."

Annie turned to the DCI and said, "Those three agents know I'm a CIA Covert Officer. I know Jo Bell is cleared all the way to the top. I'm pretty sure Burk, her boss, has the same clearance. You can get them in here, right? It will be very difficult to do this from anyplace else and keep me alive."

The DCI looked at the FBI Director who said, "Walker, you need 'em, you got 'em. They can work from here, but if anybody asks, the FBI has the lead. That should cover you for admissibility."

Annie looked right at him and said, "Thank you, sir."

The DCI turned to the Calder and said, "Please get them badges with clearance to anything in the DPD." He turned to Annie and asked, "You need Rossabi in here too?"

Annie replied, "No sir, I need him on the outside to be a pure conduit to the FISA and other Federal Judges to get us warrants. I don't want anybody but him in the DC office to know he's working with us. I may need one more team member, but I won't bring him up unless it's crucial."

Auggie spoke up and said, "If I might make a suggestion, I need Eric Barber on the team, and if we can get Sarah Tam from the Hong Kong office, she's another one I trust. But she's probably thirty hours out if she leaves in the next couple of hours."

Annie asked, "Who is she?"

"She was my second-in-command when I worked with Hong Kong Station to support your take down of Henry after Calder left to bring in Oliver Lee. She cloaked the Lexington Global Headquarters in Kowloon and blocked Henry for me so you could catch up with him."

Annie said, "You're right. We need her."

She looked at the DCI who, apparently glad for the chance to be on the winning side, said, "You got her." He looked at the Calder and said, "Have her on a plane in the next four hours. Shortest travel time should have her here by midnight tomorrow at the latest. Cost doesn't matter. If she doesn't have time to pack between now and the first available seat, give her a credit card and an escort to shop when she gets here. If you get an argument out of the station head, I'll take care of it." He looked back at Annie and asked, "Anything else."

"Yes sir." When he didn't say anything she said, "I'd like to have Command Master Chief Peters and his team on standby as a security team. If I have to go out, and that will probably happen, I'd trust them with my life. We'll need a hardened van or SUV, too."

"They are Seals?"

She nodded and said, "Team Three."

"I'll call the Secretary of the Navy from the car." He turned to the Calder and said, "You requisition the car, one of the hardened SUVs, in your name then give her and Peters the keys."

Calder said, "Yes, sir."

The DCI nodded at Calder then asked Annie, "Anything else?" Annie was relieved that, when he looked at her, his tone of voice expressed curiosity, not frustration.

She said, "No sir. But thank you for the support."

The DCI continued to look at her for a few seconds, and just when it was starting to make her uncomfortable, he said, "I want to meet with you again when this is really over - then we can have the meeting that was planned for today."

"Sorry, sir."

"Don't be, this was a whole lot more useful to the country."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

The DNI apparently, from the smug look on his face, thought he might have the last word and added, "Gentlemen, please leave her your cards with your personal cell on the back." He waited while they did as he requested, then turned to go.

The FBI Director stopped half way to the door, turned around and said, "I'll make sure you are wired back into my firewalls - you call, they'll find me for you, wherever I am, either as Annie or Betty."

"Thank you. The Agent Tarantino NOC is available?"

"I'll personally make sure it is. I'll also get you all your FBI credentials and your personal gun permits back."

The DNI turned around, walked back and said, with a trace of snark, "Gun permits? What gun permits?"

"Her personal federal concealed carry permit. It was authorized by a Federal Judge. It allows her to carry anywhere but the Whitehouse. CIA officers don't have badges."

The DNI said with a trace of sarcasm, "Really? I know you shot Henry, and Lena, but just how many actual gunfights have you been in, Walker?"

She felt her stone dead mission face come on, turned her head slightly to place him squarely in her gaze and replied in a flat voice, scary for its lack of emotion appropriate to the data, "Counting the hijacker I killed yesterday, I've been in something like twenty-five fights to the death. I think twenty were gunfights. I do remember killing two by breaking their necks, one died of injuries sustained when I fought him off with my hands, and there were two others that fell to their death during a fight - they were trying to throw me to my death at the time. I lost one fight. I was shot by Lena because I was unarmed. I don't like being unarmed."

"Any survivors?"

"Two, I think. One of those is badly crippled and stuck in a wheel chair for life with two broken knees and a ruined shoulder." Tired of this bully's passive aggressive behavior, as she spoke she focused directly on him, envisioned a target on his forehead, and walked toward him taking care to purposely trespass into his personal space. The DNI backed up a quick two steps, and Annie could see fear in his eyes. She followed him one more step and stopped right on the edge of his space.

The DCI stopped dead in his tracks, so did Director Ramsey. She could see Calder's eyes open wide, but she only said, while looking directly at the DCI, "Director Ramsey, I'd sure appreciate having that permit back."

The DNI finally said quietly, "I had no idea." He backed up another step.

Annie let him go to reward his acceptance, relaxed her face, and said, "I could tell." The DNI showed obvious relief.

The DCI walked around the DNI to face her, looked at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, and then he said, "Miss Walker, we really need to have a private talk, but I'm out of time."

She replied, "Yes sir," while she thought, _I'm supposed to have had a private talk with several people, but it never happens._

When the executives left, Annie turned to Calder. She expected to find him seething after she went over his head as she had just done, and she wouldn't have blamed him. He didn't even get a chance to say much more than, 'yes sir' in this meeting after having gone to some trouble to arrange it.

Instead, she saw he was calm and studying her. She began to feel uncomfortable under his gaze, but then it was okay because he said, "I see what Joan meant when she said you two are her rogue couple. I wouldn't have done what you just did or what you did in Hong Kong, but then Henry would still be free, and Oliver Lee wouldn't be singing for his supper if it had been left to me. Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, I told the DCI and the DNI exactly that by the way. All I did was try to keep people out of your way. "

Annie said, "Thank you, Calder. And thank you for literally standing by me during that confrontation. What's next?"

"You're welcome. Do you have a preference? Strike that. What's your preference?"

"I need to be re-introduced to Eric Barber and then the rest of the DPD staff. I need a place to live and a place to work. I think, for the time being, if we are actively working to find them it's best if I'm inside Langley full time. Henry's accomplice can afford to hire the best, and they will win if I'm outside of here. I also need some time with a shrink."

"Do you have a regular one?"

"I did. Dr. Eleanor Milbanks. Not sure if she still has my records."

"If she doesn't, I'll get them back to her. Want me to call her?"

"Please. It will be less traumatic than if I cold-call or just walk in."

"Done."

"How do we get me back into the DPD?"

"You wait here. I'll go get Eric Barber. You should know he defied me after you were killed. He refused to take off his black mourning ribbon even when I said you went rogue. He just said, 'She was my friend; I'm not taking it off.'"

"I'll wait here. Auggie, you will wait with me?"

"Of course."

"Joan, Arthur, can we talk about Senator Pearson while Calder is getting Eric?"

Joan looked surprised but said, "Of course."

* * *

**EN:** There is a lot for a beginning fiction writer to learn. Reviews help me to determine whether changes tried out make the story better or not.


	5. Return to Langley - Part 2

Hi-jacked / FRW

**AN:** We are in for a pretty good winter storm. I'm putting this up a day early just in case the expected storm takes out the power. Once again, thanks to my mentors/beta readers, Patricia Louise, Gwynne, and AleciaB for their help.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

**Return to Langley - Part 2**

**8:10 AM Day 2, Same conference room at Langley:**

Annie and Auggie heard footsteps coming down the hall. Annie stood up to face the doorway and realized she had squeezed Auggie's hand as hard as she could. She relaxed and said, "Sorry." Then Eric Barber walked into the room.

He looked in her direction. His eyes moved past her to Auggie then snapped back and his mouth literally fell open. He stopped dead in his tracks. He gasped, made a tortured sound in his chest and Annie ran the three steps to him and gave him a hug. "I'm sorry Eric. I'm so sorry. But I didn't have a choice."

He made another noise and just hugged her tighter and finally said, "Oh God ... I had no idea." He pushed her back to look at her and said, "How? You're really you, Annie. You're alive. I saw that son-of-a-bitch shoot you to death, and I had to be nice to him when I wanted to rip his heart out. But you're alive. My God, but I'm glad you are alive."

"I'm sorry, Eric. Truly sorry."

Eric turned to Auggie. "Auggie, you knew?"

"Yes. When you were helping me, you were really helping her. She had to go dark to stay alive, to keep her friends and family alive."

Eric looked back and at her and released her so she could step back.

She said, "First of all, Eric, don't be too hard on Calder. He was right there for me regardless of the risk. He helped me fake my death. We planned for him to shoot me. I knew Henry would threaten the people I care about to manipulate me, so I took myself off the game board and pursued him from the shadows."

"Did you shoot Henry in the alley?"

"Yes."

"Then the news stories are true?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen any of them."

"His corpse was found lying face down in a back alley in Hong Kong with two bullets in its heart."

"That's accurate."

"God, that's great! I mean ... I'm sorry."

"No problem. I get it. Everybody including me is glad he's dead. I just wish I hadn't had to kill him myself."

"Uh ... yeah ... uh ... when are you going to tell the rest of the department you are alive? Most of them had to watch you die. It was the worst moment in any of our lives."

Annie looked at Calder and said, "Calder?"

"I'd like to do that in about fifteen minutes. If we do it now, we control it. If we wait another two hours, it will be all over the department. Once you leave this room, the word will get out within minutes. Give me that long to get the department into the conference room."

"The room that has the side stage curtains?"

"I can do that, why?"

"I'll slip in the VIP entrance; it's accessible from the hallway outside here and wait behind the curtain. That way I don't have to walk through them to get to the front of the room. Been there, done that, not fun."

"When?"

"After I shot the three terrorists in Carlisle."

"I don't know your role in that. What happened after you were in Philadelphia? I heard rumors about Philadelphia?"

"Nothing. Do you know what happened in Philadelphia?"

"Not really. I don't really know what happened in Carlisle either. I didn't know until now that you had an FBI NOC. Joan, Arthur, you knew all this, right?"

Joan replied for the both of them when she said, "Of course. You should read the confidential report and see the plaque that the FBI gave her."

Barber said, "I have the plaque." Annie looked at him surprised, and he said, "I ... um ... was given the task of cleaning out your desk. It was hanging there, and I knew what it meant, so I saved it to remember you by." Annie could see he was having trouble keeping it together, but he managed to say, "It was ... it was how I wanted to remember you. It was how you deserved to be remembered: as a warrior – a warrior for all that's good in the world."

Annie walked over, gave him another hug and said, "Thank you, Eric. That's one of the nicest things anybody has said to me in a long time."

Then she turned to Calder, "Shall we?"

Barber said, "Wait a minute." They turned to him, and he said, "Calder, I take back all the awful, dark, hateful things I thought about you. I'm still pissed, but sometimes emotions have inertia. I'll get over it."

Calder said, "Thanks, Eric. Much appreciated. I hope the department will forgive me too. I can literally feel the hate." Then he turned to Joan and Arthur and asked, "Do you want to be there?"

They looked at each other, nodded, and Joan said, "Yes. If you gave me a chance, I might say a word or two."

# # #

**8:45 AM Day 2, Behind the curtains in the DPD main conference room twenty minutes later:**

Annie and Auggie could hear the people filing in. Their voices carried just enough so they could figure out nobody knew what this emergency meeting was about. A female voice said, "Maybe this is an official statement about Henry's death. I wonder if they are going to give us some politically correct pabulum. I'll be really pissed if they tell us about Henry but don't have the guts to give Annie the credit she deserves. It was horrific to see her shot to death. There's no way she was a traitor, Marc. No way. I'll get up and walk out if they start eulogizing Henry." Annie thought she recognized the voice as that of Megan Chapman, the administrative assistant who was dating a field operative named Marc – or at least she was a year ago.

Annie almost lost it when she recognized Marc's voice in reply, "You and I both know that son-of-a-bitch boss of ours killed the wrong person. Henry was standing right there next to that asshole Braithwaite, and they made it happen. Annie absolutely was not a traitor. Not in this or any other life. Henry was pond scum. I think he deserved what he got and then some. Be just fine with me if he took an hour to bleed out and die." There was a pause, and then he said, "We need to button it. Here comes the SOB in person."

Auggie apparently recognized Calder's footsteps and knew when he reached the front of the room. "He's here," he whispered to Annie. The room got quiet. Calder could command that kind of respect even from a room full of people who loathed him. Annie envied him that presence without knowing she had it herself.

He didn't waste any time. "I called you all here for one very important announcement and one of less importance. Let's get the less important one out of the way first. Just to remove any doubt: Henry Wilcox, a former DCS of fifteen years tenure, died a traitor in a back alley in Hong Kong a little over two days ago. There is irrefutable proof of his crimes and his betrayal of both his country and this agency. He had traded an agent of ours to the MSS and requested asylum from the Chinese and in return was going to give them a multi-month debriefing on all he knew about this agency.

"One of the best covert officers we have, a person I consider a true super spy, tracked him down over a period of five months. This officer worked in the dark, totally outside the system. It was a necessary ploy to take down a traitor with moles in place inside the agency. This agent built an airtight case and then, at great personal risk, got into position to take him down, and did.

Annie gasped when she heard Marc shout, "It was Annie, wasn't it? She shot the bastard. Didn't she?"

Calder said, "Yes, it was, and she did."

"Where the hell is she?"

Annie stepped out from behind the curtain and said, "Right here, Marc."

What happened next was pure pandemonium. Marc almost bowled Calder over getting to Annie. At first, he gave her a hug, and she made a small squeal of pain. He released her instantly; then he looked closely at her for a second and said so only she could hear him, "You're hurting, Annie, and I don't mean the ribs. It almost broke you, didn't it?"

She just nodded and said, "Now, Megan would be right; my job is killing people, but I have to live with it."

Marc said, "No, it isn't your job, but if there is no other way, you have the guts to do what needs to be done. I can't tell you how proud I am to be able to say I know you. And I'm so damn glad you're alive I can hardly stand it."

Annie returned his hug and said, "Thanks, Marc. Let me see if I can calm this down. I think Megan needs you."

Marc said, "Talk to you when you get some time," and went back to his seat next to Megan whose face was wet with tears.

Annie stepped to the podium and ran her eyes over the group of familiar faces. The room instantly quieted down. You could almost hear hearts beat. She said, "Thank you Marc and Megan for your faith in me. For being the true friends you are. It means more to me than you will ever know. Thank you to all of you who refused to believe I was a traitor. You know in your hearts who you are. And thank you especially to Calder Michaels and Auggie Anderson. Until a few days ago they were the only two members of this Agency who knew I was alive. They gave me their total unwavering support even when it looked like I was least deserving of it. I trusted them with my life, and they didn't let me down. It doesn't get better than that.

"The only other people who knew I was alive were Joan and Arthur Campbell, and they didn't learn about it until a about a week ago. They had been working with Calder, and unknown to them, with Auggie and me, to make the case to prove Henry was a traitor.

"Eric Barber, thank you for your faith in me and for standing up for me in the face of management pressure. You are a true friend.

"Finally, you all owe Calder Michaels an apology for all the dark thoughts you had about him. He supported me every step of the way through this, at great personal risk much of the time, and then he broke all the rules to get me home safely. It was critical that any mole in the DPD believed I was dead. For that to happen, all of you had to believe I was dead, so it was staged to happen on live TV, so to speak.

"When I met with Calder in Copenhagen, he agreed to help me fake my death. It was a very risky thing for him to do. He barely knew me, and what he knew can't have been reassuring. But, he believed in me for reasons I do not yet understand, and I thank him for it.

"Right now, I need to focus on moving forward. I'm sure I'll be here, at the Agency, someplace. I'm not sure what I'll be doing, and I'm not sure what normal is anymore, but I'll be glad when I figure it out. In the mean time, thank you for the welcome back. I missed you all. And I offer my most sincere and heartfelt apology for any pain and suffering I caused you."

The room rose as one and started clapping and cheering. Annie walked forward and greeted individuals. Some needed to shake her hand; others needed to touch her to be sure it was her in the brown hair. The conversations were simple; some expressed gratitude; others needed a hug, and high fives came from all over. As they gradually drifted back to their desks, she again saw Megan waiting in the hall. She held up a finger in the traditional 'wait a minute' signal and saw Megan nod with a small smile. Annie was also relieved to see people approach Calder and offer their hands.

Annie turned to Calder and said, "Thank you for that. It will make life a lot easier over the next few days while the Agency and I figure out where I fit in around here."

"You're welcome. Thank you for the vote of confidence. The whole room felt different." He nodded in Megan's direction and added, "I think Megan is waiting for you in the hall. She and Marc didn't think much of me; in fact, I think they found my presence almost unbearably repulsive. A lot of the department did. You have developed tremendous loyalty among the people here. I admire that. I don't know how you do it, but you seem to attract it from everybody including the FBI Director. Even me. Go talk to Megan; then we need to spend a few minutes together. While you talk to her, I'm going to try to get a hold of Danielle."

"Calder, It's only 6 AM in California. My sister won't be up yet."

"Okay, I'll wait till after our meeting. Can you and Auggie meet me in my DCS office in a few minutes?"

"Yes. I won't be long with Megan."

Annie walked up to Megan and wasn't surprised when she reached out and pulled her into a hug. The sobs from Megan brought home to her the price she had made people pay. It wasn't only her willing sacrifice; it was the involuntary sacrifice of all those who believed in her and had their belief thrown in their faces when they heard her labeled a traitor and saw Calder shoot her in that elevator.

"Megan, I'm sorry. I seem to be saying that a lot. I had no idea how much I was going to make people suffer with my choice. But, I want you to know, I'd do it again. I won't be able to. It's a tactic that only works once, if it works at all, but I had to do it to protect the people in my life I care about. Henry was going to threaten or kill those I treasure most to control me. He threatened Auggie. I couldn't let that happen, so I took myself off the game board in the only way that he'd believe."

She felt Megan nod her head and released her from the hug. There was genuine concern in Megan's face when she looked up. "Annie, are you all right? I know this must have been terribly hard for you. You are paying a huge price for having done what you did. I know your character from our discussion the last time we were in a big meeting like this. You have more moral courage than anyone I know but I think that only makes it harder, not easier. So are you okay?"

Annie said, "No, but in time I will be. I'll never be exactly the same person I was. I've been through too much, and its effect on me isn't completely reversible. I don't want it to be. But I'm going to be okay."

"I realize it's none of my business, but between us girls, are you and Auggie okay?"

"I don't know. We are still working that out, but we can talk, hold hands and hug, and when we do it feels like heaven, and that's a good sign."

"You two have a sort of mind meld. The rumors in the department before you ... were murdered by ... by ..."

"He was doing what I asked him to do, Megan. I gave myself the injection to stop my heart before the elevator doors opened."

"You really died?"

"Yes."

"Who bought you back to life?"

"A true friend who will remain nameless, but it wasn't Auggie. I was lucky to survive my fake death. A few minutes more and I wouldn't have. Scariest thing I've ever done." Annie paused and then said, "Meg, I gotta go meet with Calder and get some things sorted out. My life's a mess."

"Annie?"

"Yes."

"You aren't an assassin. I won't believe that of you ever. I know you. You did the right thing. From what I've heard on the news and in here, there was no option. He _had_ to die."

"Thank you, Megan. I needed that. It means more coming from you. Thank you very much." Annie pulled her into a quick hug then said, "I really have to go. My sister doesn't know I'm alive. I need to tell her – though it probably won't be today.

**10:00 AM Day 2, Calder's DPD Office:**

It was nearly an hour later when Annie arrived at Calder's office. It had taken longer than she anticipated, for the word that she was back had spread at the speed of light. The hall had become a reception line filled with those who wanted to welcome her back. She finally made it and found Auggie and Calder waiting.

Calder said, "I got a call from Rossabi; he really wants to talk to you. After what Auggie just told me, I'd expect a call from your two Philadelphia FBI friends as well." He was prescient because at that moment his phone range. He picked it up and said, "Yes, Agent Burk, I know who you are, and I will call you back on an encrypted line. Give me the number." Annie saw him write down the number and then hang up.

He looked at Annie and said, "Ready?"

"Go for it."

Calder put the phone on speaker, went through the ritual to connect the call, and when it was answered, Annie heard Megan Burk's voice say, "Calder Michaels?"

"Yes. You are on speaker."

"SSAIC Burk and Supervisory Special Agent Bell here. You are on speaker. Annie are you there? Alive?"

"Hi Jo, Megan, yes, I'm here and very much alive."

She heard Jo say, "God damn it, I _knew_ you were too tough to kill. I bawled my eyes out when I heard it, but I told Megan it must have taken a whole damn army to do it. Are you all right?"

"I'm physically all here - a little banged up but fully functional. Mentally I'm a bit of a mess, but I'll be okay with time."

Jo said, "You were in the cold weren't you?"

"Yes. Give me a minute on mute; I'm getting strange looks."

"No doubt. We'll be here."

Calder said, "What the hell are you doing? You can't tell them that."

"Stop being paranoid, Calder. Henry's death is on the news. They are going to be badged in here. We are already cleared by the DCI and DNI to read them in on this case. By the time they help us catch his co-conspirator, they will know the whole story in more intimate detail than you do now. So, relax and learn; recognize who your friends are. You want these two on your side in any fight. Okay?"

"You've made up your mind, haven't you?" He sighed and said, "I feel like such a novice around you."

"We'll talk about that later; let's get back to them, okay?"

When he nodded, she took the phone off mute and said, "You there?"

Megan replied, "Calder isn't used to you yet, is he?"

"No, but he's one of the genuine good guys. Have you folks learned about your new assignment?"

Megan continued, "We just got a call from your buddy Ramsey. Once we recovered from the announcement that you were alive, he said we would be the lead agency, at least for legal purposes, but we'll work with you out of Langley. You will have us badged into Langley?"

"I'm not sure where we will set up, but you are cleared to have a badge to get in here, so it would be best if you were down here. I can't leave here, I have a target on my chest, so I don't see how this can work if you are up there. Jo, do I need to apologize to Rob?"

Calder said, "Who's Rob?"

Jo said, "My boyfriend and hopefully soon my fiancée."

Annie said, "That's what I'm talking about. Did he pass his PE exam?"

"Oh yeah. I had no doubt. He's like you. He makes smart look easy. He's working full time as an engineer now. I'm so proud of him I could split a lip grinning. Annie, would you call him tonight? I want him to hear whatever lie you are going to tell him directly from you."

"I understand. Let me know when you've broken the news, and then I'll give him a call."

"Thanks. That's very important to me."

Calder looked impatient, but Annie ignored him. "Megan, now that you run the Philadelphia office, how do you like it?"

"I'd like it better if I had more agents like Jo and Bill Cleary and less of Ross's hires to deal with, but soon I'll have them all moved to spots where they won't do too much damage. If you ever want to become Agent Walker, for real, I'd love that."

Annie chuckled and said, "Nice try. It does have some appeal, but I'd get fired in a week working with your boy scouts. I wondered how much trouble you would have dealing with Ross's infection potential."

"It's pretty much under control. Bill Cleary, my third-in-command, can run things if I'm allowed to keep in touch."

"Why not your second-in-command?"

"Because you've asked for her to come to Langley with me."

"Jo? Ah! Ha! _Supervisory_ Special Agent Bell. I'm getting slow in my old age."

Jo said, "Don't sound so surprised. You'll hurt my feelings."

Annie laughed out loud. "I'm not, I'm delighted. They couldn't have a better person. The number you have should work again, or at least I think it should. Give me a call and let me know when you are in town. Auggie and I want to buy you a donut or something sinful like that."

Jo said, "I will. Annie, we are so glad you are alive words don't get it done. I've got to get down there and give you a hug. I'll give you a call around eight this evening so you can talk to Rob."

"Yes. You can tell him Betty Lou is alive. He still doesn't know my real name, right?"

"No, he doesn't. But someday I'd like you to read him in."

Calder said, "Annie, you are cleared to do that, but, Jo, it's best if Annie does it herself because it removes any question about its legality."

Jo said, "Maybe we can meet at our usual place, and I can bring Rob along?"

"And I'll bring Auggie."

"After we get whatever this joint project is done?"

"Or the first available opportunity."

Calder said, in a pleasant voice despite his growing frustration with the small talk, "I'm looking forward to meeting you, but we've _got_ to go. Life is a bit hectic here at the moment, and we need to finish getting Annie resurrected. Her Betty Lou NOC will be reactivated by tomorrow morning. Right?"

Burk answered, "I'll check on it. Annie can probably give you our e-mail addresses and phone numbers if her memory is anything like I think it is."

Annie said, "No problem. We need to run. Bye," and pressed the button to end the call.

Calder said, "Are they family that aren't in your file? That conversation blew my mind. I don't know a single FBI agent I could have a conversation with like that, never mind two."

"They and I are comrades' in arms. You might want to read about it someday. But not now." She continued without stopping and said, "Can you arrange for a desk for me, preferably in a room where we can co-locate my team, and a room I can sleep in? I don't want to leave campus until we cut off this last loose end. Auggie probably shouldn't either. Or we can get Chief Peters to accompany me on the search for a safe house."

"I had Peters team put up in a hotel in Virginia about five minutes from here. He will soon have the SUV if he doesn't already. It's hardened by the way. They wanted to hang onto their weapons and use some of their free time to practice, so I put them in Virginia instead of DC. They've arranged somewhere to go for weapons practice when you don't need them – likely in the evening. It's some sort of private facility about an hour from here. Apparently Peters is a member or something and got permission to bring the rest of his team with him."

"Franks."

"What?"

"He's going to Franks."

"What's a Franks?"

"It's the elite gun fighting school I graduated from. I need to call Frank and get my training contract reinstated."

"Do I get to vote?"

"On whether or not I go there for training? No. I was invited to attend for free, but when she learned about it and saw what I had accomplished Joan agreed to pay for it. I agreed to let her as long as I could work on what I wanted to work on in addition to what she might ask for."

"What can you do?"

Auggie just sighed and said, "Oh my. Annie, he doesn't have a clue."

"What are you talking about?"

"Do you remember the Carlisle restaurant shooting a year-and-a-half ago or so?"

"Yeah, some crazy, blond, reincarnated Annie Oakley shot two running terrorists in the head ... oh crap. Walker that was you, wasn't it? And you took down the other two the next day south of town. Auggie, you were there too, right?"

"Yup."

"So, speculating here based on Director Ramsey's comment, but you were also the blond, FBI anti-terrorist expert that took down the terrorist cell in Philadelphia by killing something like a dozen of them single-handed in the dark to rescue an FBI agent. That's what Ramsey was talking about - anti-terrorist Special Agent Tarantino he said. It was Betty Lou Tarantino, and that rescued agent was Jo Bell? Right?"

"Auggie, I think he's got it."

"You didn't think that shot at the moving car was all that hard, did you?"

"Not really. Tricky but not hard. You maintained a nice straight line for just long enough, Auggie held me steady so I could get my whole torso out for a good clear shot. I compensated for the upward refraction that would happen when the bullet hit the windshield glass, and it was a piece of cake. If you checked, I expect you found the driver the driver was shot through the head and died instantly."

"A central nervous system hit at thirty yards from a moving car to a moving car through a windshield? Good grief, how good are you?"

"I honestly don't know. I don't have anything to compare myself too. But I almost never miss inside of fifty yards with a handgun. So will you let me call Frank and reveal I'm alive? Maybe I can train with Master Chief Peters and his guys. That would be fun. I'm always training alone because nobody can know I'm a CIA Agent or that I can shoot like that. Joan was afraid the dark side of the CIA would grab me, and I told her I'd quit before I'd do that. Although that seems to have gotten out of the bag."

"You will go there anyway, right?"

"Of course, but do you really object?"

"No. Can we call him now so you can introduce me over the phone and I can get the contract number to reactivate it?"

Annie dialed Frank's number from memory. She hoped he might answer. It happened to be in a window of time that he was often available to take a call. When she heard, "Frank," she said, "Frank, it's me."

There was a moment of dead silence; then he said rapid fire: "What's your status here, what did you train on last, how did you do, what's my nick name for you?"

She replied with no hesitation, "Post Doc. One point five kilometers with my AI in .338 Lapua. I out scored you and your Barrett by two points. Bugs."

"Damn! Bugs, it really is you. When are you coming out?"

"My new boss is sitting here with me. Calder Michaels, meet Frank, and vise-versa. Frank, he will be re-activating my old training contract if I'm still welcome and you can find my guns."

"Of course you are welcome. Auggie brought me your guns and seemed to want me to hang on to them, so I did. Now I understand why. In any event, I have them all in the safe. I'll get your cottage set back up so it's ready. I have all your stuff from there in storage.

"I have some Seals here at the moment so we need to schedule when they aren't here."

Annie replied, "Command Master Chief Jed Peters, Chief Beau Maxwell, and CPO Gavin Lewis?"

"Yes. Do they know you?"

"Yes, but only Peters knows my real first name. The rest know me as Matrix or Mighty Mouse. You can tell them you know me and give them my real name. They were the protection team that got me back alive. They will be around for a while. I asked to have them assigned to me for an indefinite period, but it probably won't be more than a few weeks. Can I train with them?"

"Hell yes. They were protecting you? I'd assign you to protect them. You can shoot circles around them in the house and out to fifteen hundred meters. I warn you, Peters is a real wind wizard. One of the best I've seen beyond fifteen hundred, so you two should have some fun. Peters is almost as good as Auggie was between one-and-a-half and two kilometers."

"I'm here Frank."

"Good. How are ya?"

"Getting along."

"Yeah, I bet you are. Good to hear from you, friend."

"Same."

Calder was looking back and forth and finally said, "I'm the only one who has no clue what you're talking about, aren't I. So Annie is a world class pistol shot?"

Frank said, "Oh yeah. That too."

"Too? In addition to what?"

"She's world class with anything that has bullets and a muzzle. If she has a chance to setup and the target is within a kilometer-and-a-half of her, it's toast."

"I'll be darned. I had no clue. I have to ask, what led to the nickname 'Bugs'."

"We were trying out a new March five-to-forty by 56 millimeter rifle scope on her AI three hundred Win-Mag.-"

"What's an AI three hundred Win-Mag?"

Frank said, "Custom built Accuracy International sniper rifle chambered in three hundred Winchester Magnum."

"Oh."

"Anyway, there was no mirage, and we could see flies crawling around on the target at three hundred meters. Annie decided to swat them by shooting them. And she did! I called her Bugs after that."

"Walker, we need to talk sometime."

"Why does everybody keep saying that?"

Calder laughed, and Annie said, "Frank, we need to sign off, but I'll try to get there within the next couple of weeks. I desperately need some time in the house. I think I've only popped about seven caps since I was there last. I'll call and see if we can find a time that works for both of us."

"Annie, anytime. I'm so glad you are alive I'd kick Team Six off the range just to say hello. Uh, quick question?"

"Go."

"Can I show Peters and his team your most recent shoot house tapes? They could learn a thing or two from them."

"Sure."

"Okay, call me when you're free."

"Thanks, Frank. I missed you too." and she pressed the end call button.

"You have connections in places other people don't have places. What is this shooting range? Why haven't I heard of it?"

Auggie said, "It isn't a shooting range; it's a gun fighting school taught by a master gunfighter. It's by invitation only. Only the best of the best get invited, or so I'm told. A few from Special Operations which includes a few Seals, one or two from the FBI HRT have been there, some Delta force, a couple of Secret Service. People like that. And Annie. She's the second woman to be invited."

"How does one arrange to get invited? How did Chief Peters get invited?"

Auggie said, "One doesn't arrange to get invited. It comes as a surprise."

Annie said, "Chief Peters has two Navy Crosses."

"Wow. How did you get invited?"

"I took Auggie's place after he was unable to shoot. Frank accepted me on Auggie's recommendation after putting me through a test."

"What do you do out there?"

"Joan had DVDs of my last three training sessions, I think. You could ask her. I've not seen them, but I think Frank videoed parts of the shoot house training for her. It's pretty intense. That should clear up any lingering doubts."

"I'll ask her. Now get out of here and let me call your sister."

"I have one more thing that is urgent before you do that."

"Annie, seriously?"

"Sana Wilcox. I planted Henry's false information on her fiancée's computer as Hughes was supposed to do. Then I texted Henry that it was done. He alerted Interpol who came in, found it, and hauled her innocent fiancée off to jail. He never did anything wrong, and he employed me for two months which gave me money to live off. I can't let what I did ruin their lives."

"It won't."

"Calder, they hauled him off to jail."

"As soon as I saw you back in the States last week, I worked through legal and got him released, all charges dropped. He is cooperating with us, and he will be compensated for the damage we did to his business and then some - a generous out-of-court settlement for the suit that was never filed, if you will. I had a newspaper article written and published that made him into an almost hero. Sana and her man are fine."

"Thank you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you doing that."

"Do you appreciate it enough to get out of here and let me call your sister?"

"I'm gone." She and Auggie got up as one and left closing the door behind them.

* * *

**EN:** Thanks for reading. I'd appreciate a short note with your thoughts.

01/10/2014


	6. Quest For A New Normal

I enjoyed the comments on the last chapter. I'm learning. Thank you. This is a pretty good chunk of story at nearly 8,500 words. I hope you enjoy it.

Again, many thanks to my mentors, Patricia Louise, AleciaB, and Gwynne.

I own nothing of Covert Affairs, but I sure enjoy playing with the characters.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

**Quest for a New Normal**

**5:30 PM Day 2, In the old Office of Special Projects, Langley:**

Earlier in the afternoon, Calder had offered the office to her as a team room. Annie looked it over. _I don't think it's been used since they closed the SPO. That would be two years ago. They certainly sanitized it. I can't believe how clean it is. The desk drawers look like a new desk. No bits of lead, no ink stains, no erasure dust, it's pristine. Not even any stains behind the drawer handles where there are always stains. There isn't anything on the floor, not even in the corners. None of the signs of previous occupancy that I always see even in an abandoned office. It's almost surreal how clean it is. There's no sign that it was ever occupied, but ... oh God ... I can feel Jai here ... _In that moment she missed Jai with an intensity that gave her vertigo and threatened her ability to stand upright. She braced her feet, grabbed the desk with both hands, and lowered her head for a few seconds before she raised her head as an experiment to see if the dizziness was gone. After a few seconds, she felt stable enough to stand by herself again. _Wow, that was so intense it hurt. I miss you, Jai. I'm so sorry you are gone. I'm so sorry I had to kill your dad, but I know you'd forgive me if you were here. _

When the moment was over, she shook her head, looked around, pushed her grief for Jai back into its compartment in her head and focused on the room. After a few minutes of pacing and measuring with her hands, she decided it was definitely on the intimate side of size for her whole team, but they'd make it work. She wanted her whole team in one small room. There would be nobody to overhear what was discussed, nobody to eavesdrop on their clues, nobody with the data to warn their target. Everybody would be privy to the whole investigation, which would give them the best chance of doing this with speed. However, it could be locked up and isolated from the network to make it nearly hack proof and mole proof.

_Why did they come after me? Why kick the sleeping dog? It makes no sense. I thought it was over. They proved it wasn't. They must have intended to kidnap me and fly that plane into China? That's why the one pilot was in the seat? Killing us and leaving via parachute was maybe plan B. Plan C was kill me on the ground, but I think that was the least profitable for them. If kidnapping wasn't the plan, they could have waited until I was wandering obliviously around town and taken me or killed me pretty much anytime. Damn! They still could. We can't stop until we are certain we have smoked out the whole hive. _

_If that's what they want, game on!_

_I wonder what they're thinking? They have to know I'm coming for them with mission lock on. They've tried to kill me and so far failed. They won't stop, but if they miss me, the only way this ends is with them in jail or dead. They have to know I went after Lena Smith in the middle of Russia and how that came out. They definitely know I went after Henry - that I was willing to risk my life in both cases to get to my objective - and how that ended. That perception on their part has to be my advantage. Their perception of my ruthless commitment to my objective needs to be maintained. That turns up the pressure. Pressure leads to mistakes. They already made one. I'm nearly invulnerable while I'm in Langley. Time is on my side. Care and certainty are my friends. Risk and expediency is their only friend. _

_Any unavoidable trips outside the building need to appear spur of the moment from their point of view. I don't want to give them time to plan. I don't think they'll risk a spontaneous attack. They need to get away clean. Between the CIA and the FBI, we have access to pretty much the entire phone book of people they might approach to take a contract on me. If they try for me again and fail, which they have done so far, we can go right back up the line to the source. I need to keep pressure on them without it seeming overt, and I sure don't want to give them any sort of lever to use against me._

She walked over to the desk and picked up the phone for the first time. The line was live, so she dialed Auggie.

He answered, "DPD Tech. Ops., Anderson."

"Auggie, I've been assigned the office that held your and Jai's old Office of Special Projects. I want to move you, Barber, and terminals for Sara, Jo, Megan and me in here. And one spare in case Calder decides to check something and needs a terminal. Can you make that happen?"

"Definitely. Where do you want them?"

"Standing in the door facing in: turn the desk so my back will be to the left wall. Move it toward the wall until I have just enough room to sit between it and against the left wall. Get rid of the credenza. The thing is big enough to fly missions off, and I don't need that. The desk has an overhang that lets people sit up to it across from me. We'll use it as both my desk and a conference table for team meetings. I'd like a big monitor on the wall above and behind my desk that we can switch to any of the terminals. Put another on the opposite wall so we can face the terminals and see it.

"Put the terminals in some sort of workable configuration around the perimeter of the rest of the office, preferably along the right side and front window wall. We can pull the curtains behind them to make it easier to see the monitors."

"I'll get Eric on it right now. I'll get blackout drapes for the window wall. I'll also put servers in the room with us. That will give us essentially instantaneous response for data searches in database extracts, isolation from the Agency server farms, and a redundant backup for our data."

Annie replied, "Thanks. Can you make the room autonomous?"

"In what way?"

"Like I mentioned in that mucky muck meeting this morning – one way firewalls. Can we have our own data servers that are firewalled off from the main CIA servers? We can have a backup on the CIA servers, but I would like it encrypted so that a mole can't know what we are up to."

"Yes. That's what I'm talking about. You already got us permission to do that. But if I get an argument out of the IT potentates, Calder will doubtless take it on."

"I'd also like to put some of that one-way Mylar on the windows to the hall so that we can see out but nobody can see in. I think that requires the hall be brighter than the room, is that right?"

"I think so, but I'll find out for sure. Anything else?"

"Can we get a biometric plus combination lock for the door and have the inside windows alarmed?"

"Yup. They do that with the drone rooms and other direct action facilities in the building, I'm pretty sure we can do it for at least the duration of the team's assignment. Oh, Sarah is on her way. Left Hong Kong about an hour-and-a-half after your meeting this morning. Anything else?"

"Good. Nope. Not right now."

Before she could hang up, Auggie asked with some trepidation, "Annie, I'm going to be done here in about an hour. Can we talk? Please. We need to talk. Just us."

"I'd like that. A lot. Meet me here?"

Auggie confirmed it when he said in a voice that sounded relieved, "See you then."

She hung up and, after checking her watch to be sure Megan would still be in, called Marc's girlfriend.

"Operations," Megan said when she picked up the phone.

"Megan, it's Annie. Would you be willing to do me a favor?"

"Of course."

"I need you to go shopping for me. I need some clothes. These still smell like ocean, airplane and Hong Kong back alley fish markets, and I can't leave Langley at the moment."

"Shopping? Oh yeah. Girl, I _love_ to shop. Whatcha want?"

"You know where the Office of Special Projects was?"

"Yeah, sure."

"I'm there. I'll make a list with my sizes and what I need. I'd appreciate it if you could stop and pick it up."

"I'll be there in about fifteen minutes. I need to finish a memo and shut down here. I'll see if Marc can go with me. We were planning to spend the evening together. This gives us a fun project. Well, it gives me a fun project, and he gets to practice being okay with female fun projects."

Annie chuckled; I'll have the list waiting," she said and ended the call.

She called the number Chief Peter's had given her.

He answered on the first ring, "Chief Peters."

"Hi, Chief, it's ... Mighty Mouse."

He replied with a chuckle, "Hey, Bugs."

She laughed and said, "I hope he said at least _something_ good."

Peters laughed and said, "Oh heck, the way he talked about you would make the Madonna blush. He said he was surprised you weren't assigned to protect us. After seeing your shoot house videos earlier today and the small rapid-fire group in that hijacker's chest, I can see why he said that. But what's on your mind?"

"I need you guys to find yourselves some civilian clothes. Get casual things that blend in with the potential victims: slacks, sport coats and ties with the right shoes and socks. You'll need at least one good business suit with the appropriate footwear as well. Get Frank to tell you where you can get clothes that fill well and still disguise a handgun. I need you to look like gentlemen and still be packing. Can do?"

"Sure. I'm not sure how much we can spend though. How much do we need?"

"Two or three pairs of slacks, a sport coat, three shirts, ties, shoes, socks, and a good suit. I'm talking a thousand dollars for the suit. Pay whatever they want to have it done in forty-eight hours. I'll get you reimbursed. Keep the receipts. If you want a female opinion-"

"I've got that covered."

Annie chuckled and said, "I bet you do. Frank can help you with holsters and concealed carry guns. Give me a call when you have the stuff and could deploy as civilians. Again, give me a copy of the receipts and I'll get you reimbursed."

"WILCO. By the way, I love that Lapua of yours. Frank let me use it. Put some three hundred SMKs right on target at one point five - cold zero clean bore."

"You can shoot anything of mine that's out there. But, don't get attached to it. I always get them back - sometimes with a limb attached."

He laughed and said, "Of that, I've no doubt. Thanks. I made sure we were there today because I'm not sure when we'll get back out there. I want to be close to home here in case you need us. Five minute response time is good, seventy isn't."

"When this is over, I'd love to train with your team for a couple of days before you go back, if that's okay with you?"

"Definitely. We already talked about that in the car on the way back. We'd like that."

"Thanks. Try my Wilson Combat X-TAC compact if you get the chance. Just clean it good. I love that thing, but it cost me about a month's wages."

"He showed it to me. That's gorgeous. So is your custom Wilson Sentinel in nine millimeter. They both have a trigger to die for. If it's okay, I'll ask to try them both next time I'm out there."

"Please do."

"Thanks!"

Annie ended the call and sat down to think about her upcoming talk with Auggie. _He wants to talk about us. About whether or not we can resume being 'us' –lovers, man and woman, maybe man and wife, as opposed to just operative and handler, partners, friends. _She could feel her eyes clench and her guts tie up in knots with the thought of losing that. _Okay, relax Annie. Think. I admit it, if I'm honest with myself that is exactly what I want. I want to go right back there. I want us all into this together. I want to sleep in his bed. I want him to be the first person I see every morning. I want him to look at me with his fingers before a good morning kiss._

_What does he want? Evidence Annie, use your head. _A series of flash memories assailed her: Auggie on the phone, Auggie not questioning her motives, Auggie 110% supportive even before she went dark. Auggie staying behind unasked to make her take down of Henry successful. The thought that without him she'd be dead left her collapsed in her chair hugging herself until she could think clearly again. _He wants to talk. The last time he wanted to talk we ended up saying about three words and jumping into bed. Well, sign me up! But, it was more than that and we both know it. Okay, I know he wants me, too. _

_So what's the problem? What are the deal breakers? It definitely isn't life in the CIA. We've been attracted to each other for a while now, and we still work fantastically together. I can work with a different handler if I have to as long as I have his number available for crunch time. Heck, there is exactly one issue(:), Helen. Is he done with Helen or still carrying a torch for her? We can work through all but that one. If it isn't an issue, we're a go near as I can tell. If it is an issue, will he still want me after he is over it? Only one way to know. Ask._

Her thoughts were interrupted by Megan's arrival. She knocked and then apparently saw Annie nod because she walked in and said, "I see tears, Annie. You were hugging your knees with your head down, and you've been crying? Are you okay?"

Annie felt her cheeks, saw the dark tearstains on her pants and was surprised to find they were wet. She grabbed a tissue and quickly dabbed her eyes and face but didn't try to hide anything. "Yeah. I guess I was. I'm more okay than I was a couple of minutes ago. Sometimes processing my life isn't easy. You have time to do the shopping?"

"Yup. You're usually a great dresser. I really need to get you some clothes. Got the list?"

"Right here. The shoes, I need some that are female, dressy, but still athletic. I need to be able to run in them and at the same time, have them look nice. I need low heels of some sort to go with the suit. The sizes of the brands I usually wear are all on this list."

Megan said quietly, "You need shoes you can fight in."

Annie sighed and said, "Yes. Yes, I do. I wish I didn't, but I think my days of four inch Louboutins are over, or few and far between. I haven't had on a pair of more than lo-rise heels or boots in five, almost six, months."

"Marc said he'd go with me. That it would be good experience."

"You and he are still dating?"

"Yes. While you were gone, it's gotten pretty serious. At least it is for me, and I'm pretty sure it is for him too. I think he's holding off on proposing until he is able to pass the bar. He's finished law school and been studying for the bar between missions. Between us girls, I'd say yes, right now, bar or no bar. I don't care if he drives a UPS truck or drives a garbage truck. The man inside is everything I'm looking for. He hasn't been in the field much over the last year. He had a bad experience in Italy just after you were in that warehouse thing. His cover was badly blown in some newspaper articles that featured a blurry but recognizable picture of him. He said he might as well be overt, that the only people that don't know his covert status are the ones that don't matter. I think Calder agrees." She paused and added, "I'd like to think of Calder as one of the good guys, but I've hated the man for months. It takes time to get over that."

"I know. Megan, Marc will pass the bar first try. He's a smart guy. He'll do fine as a lawyer too whether he stays here in the General Counsel's Office or makes the move outside to practice as a civilian or maybe joins the FBI. I'd love to have a lawyer in the General Counsel's office with Marc's field experience. He may have trouble pulling himself completely free from the mission in life that brought him here, so the General Counsel's office might be good. But, the FBI is an option that would make use of both his field agent skills and his legal training. It would give him access to a gun permit. I seem to have a fixation on gun permits, but I seem to need one too.

"Speaking of which, if he ever wants to join the FBI, I know a few agents I can introduce him to. In fact, two of them will be badged into the DPD with full access and be working here with me until we finish this operation. He might want to stop by so I can introduce him to them."

"I'd love that. Yeah, I'll tell him. Now I gotta run. Some of these stores are only open another two hours."

"Thanks, Megan."

After Megan's steps faded, Annie went back to musing about the people that had a contract on her, but it didn't last long before Auggie opened the door. He turned his head to scan the room with his ears then looked in her direction and said, "All set?"

Annie got up, walked over, pushed the door shut behind him and nuzzled herself into a hug. She felt him flinch but persisted until he recovered, and she felt his arms go around her and return the hug.

She said against his chest, "Auggie, I missed you. I missed being us. I want to know if we can be us again. But I don't want to talk about it here. I have a room. Do you have one here too?"

Auggie said, "Annie, I want to be us again too. I have the room next to yours. Yours is the suite with a bit of a kitchen. Mine's the optional extra bedroom through the shared doors."

Annie felt such peace in Auggie's arms. They had many things to work out, but only one was a potential showstopper. She decided to get it out of the way. "Auggie, I have to ask you a question right now."

"Ask me anything."

"Were you and Helen over?"

With no hesitation, Auggie replied, "Yes. That was a night I'm not proud of, but it proved to both of us that we were over. We talked briefly the next morning, but it was just dotting the 'i's on what we both knew. It was 'over' beyond any hope of recovery. Had been for a long, long time. We were not jointly what we individually wanted, or what we used to be, and knew with certainty we never would be. We parted friends, but we parted."

She turned her head so her ear was pressed against his chest and listened to his strong heartbeat. She knew what she wanted. "Let's stop at the food court, get a pizza and some Pepsi, and head down there. You in?"

He gave her an additional squeeze and said, "I'd like that very much. You ready?"

She made her decision, shifted in his arms to look up at him, gently kissed him and said, "Yeah, I'm ready."

They both knew she wasn't just talking about pizza.

# # #

**10:55 AM Day 3, Langley, Megan Chapman's desk in Operations:**

Annie walked through the bullpen area and over to Megan's desk. The area around it was littered with bags of clothes including a couple of hanging suit bags draped over an empty desk and a pile of six shoeboxes. Megan saw Annie coming, grinned at her and said, "That was so much fun. It would have been even better if we'd done it together. Is there some place we can go so you can try this stuff on?

"You had two different waist sizes for each style of pants and for the suit, so we need to figure out which one fits and take the others back."

"They'll both fit, Megan. The larger size allows a gun in the waist band; the smaller size doesn't."

"Oh. Um ... okay ... that's what Marc thought you were doing. But you still need to try this stuff on, right?"

"The shoes and suits, definitely. I think we have a tailor onsite who can modify the suits if they need it. The shoes really need to fit, but they aren't as critical as the heels I used to wear."

"The Christian Louboutins?"

Annie sighed and said, "Yeah, those. I think they are still in a warehouse jammed in a box someplace, but I don't know when I'll wear them now."

"You might get a chance. Sometimes you have to go to some pretty high level parties or celebrations, right?"

"I wish I could be sure I wouldn't need to run or fight. I'd love to feel safe for even five minutes. One can hope."

She saw the shock on Megan's face and said, "I think Marc has it right. Maybe I should consider law school." She shook her head, sighed and continued, "Let's take this stuff down to my room - I'd like to change out of these clothes. They're all I've worn for the last 13 days with exactly one washing. I'd throw them away, or burn them, but they might be useful for getting my new safe house set up. Those are usually pretty rough and dirty to start. We end up doing some carpentry and other stuff to make secret compartments."

"Marc has one of those someplace. He won't let me see it."

"He can't. It's against the rules for good reason. It's only safe if nobody knows where it is. If anybody knows, anybody at all, they can be taken hostage and have the location tortured out of them. Marc doesn't tell you for your own protection."

"That's what he said."

"When I move into my safe house, I'll have to haul everything into it myself. Last time I had one that was unfurnished. I had a mattress on pallets for a bed. This time I'll go for furnished. Then I just have to take some clothes and other stuff."

"I didn't know that. Can we carry this stuff down there now? I'm supposed to take the minutes of a meeting for the tech guys in about an hour."

"Yeah, let's do it."

# # #

**8:00 AM Day 4, Hallway outside of the civilian conference room, Langley, VA:**

Annie approached the open doorway into the conference room with trepidation. She'd been 'dead' for five months. Auggie had picked up the phone with great reluctance and told her sister she was dead just minutes after Calder had shot her in the elevator. Now Danielle was in the conference room; she expected Calder Michaels or Joan Campbell to arrive and ask for her help with some final details related to her dead sister. Calder had shown Annie a picture of Danielle standing beside Auggie at her grave while the urn containing her ashes was lowered into the hole. The look on Danielle's face had Annie in tears.

Danielle had boxed up her sister's belongings to be placed in storage. Auggie and Calder had told her they had to be saved for seven years in case they contained essential evidence. Her sister had been told she had died a traitor: a disgraced and humiliated agent who had forced another CIA operative to shoot her in self-defense. Annie couldn't imagine what had gone through Danielle's mind all these months or what she had told Chloe and Katia. It must have been devastating for all of them. Annie loved her sister and nieces beyond words, and yet she'd visited all this suffering on them.

She almost turned around, but Calder's words echoed in her head, "You can't be Annie Walker ever again unless you tell Danielle." She took a deep breath, exhaled and walked into the room.

Her soft, rubber soled boots had made her approach silent. As she first caught sight of her, Danielle stood alone and looked out at the sky through the window. Her face held the saddest, most forlorn expression Annie had ever seen on it. It made Annie want to cry. Instead, she said, softly, "You can't see Venus in the daylight."

Danielle's features froze and her body stiffened with shock when she recognized her sister's voice. Her eyes popped open, and her pupils dilated as she snapped her head in Annie's direction. A variety of emotions flashed across her face as she tried to process the amazing resurrection. It was almost like watching a fight in slow motion, Annie thought. She tried to speak words of comfort, but they wouldn't come. Then they both moved toward each other to crash together in an embrace so tight neither could really breathe.

Annie involuntarily cried out with the pain from the pressure on her cracked ribs but hugged her sister with all her strength. Danielle finally pushed her back, looked her up and down and said, "Were you shot again? Where are you hurt?"

"Not shot. Ribs. Cracked ribs. Everything else is bruised. Gentle hug. But please, I need you to hug me."

Danielle pulled her back close, and then her emotions caught up with her again. She made an awful, tortured, soul wrenching noise that ended with a whispered, "Oh God, it's you. You, it's really you. Annie, you're alive." Then she pushed her back almost violently to look hard into Annie's tear filled eyes and then pulled her back into another gentle hug. They stayed that way for what seemed to Annie like forever, but she didn't care. It was her sister, and, so far, she hadn't rejected her.

Finally, Danielle relaxed against her and just started to sob: great racking sobs matched a few seconds later by Annie's.

In time, they regained control. Danielle gently pushed Annie away to arms length but held onto her wrists and studied her face. Then she sniffed and said, "You're hurting. I love you; you're alive, and you're hurting. Your soul is hurting. Losing you was the worst thing that's ever happened to me, but I think it hurt you worse. What have you been through? Annie, I love you. I know you wouldn't have done that if you didn't have to. Please tell me enough to make me feel it was worth it."

"I'm sorry Danielle. I'm so very ... very ... sorry. But, as of four days ago, it was worth it."

"Annie, they were horrid to me. They said awful things about you. They told me you were a traitor. That you had gone rogue. That you didn't deserve a star. They presented me with an ugly ceramic urn, and only Auggie, Joan, and someone they called Barber, I think, came to be with me when I put you in the ground. They would only allow me to buy a very simple headstone because of your disgrace. I paid for the funeral and the cremation. They didn't give me a choice about cremation - it was already done. I didn't get to say goodbye. God, but that was awful. I was in the most awful meeting of my life. I screamed at them that you weren't a traitor. That something was wrong. Somebody was lying. I told them I got the Venus card, but they said that was just your way of asking for forgiveness for the evil you'd done."

"Who told you that?"

"Some overfed, overconfident, slimy lawyer with a voice like buttered cow shit; I think his name was Alex. A total kiss ass named Braithwaite, and a pompous, arrogant ass named Henry Wilcox who used to be a big deal at the CIA. Wilcox and the lawyer were the worst."

"At my funeral?"

"No, it was right here in this same room. It was the only time I had an official meeting with Langley related to your murder. I was convinced they had murdered you to cover their own asses. They told me lots of rules. I screamed at them and told them fuck their rules; you weren't a traitor. I told them they were lying. But they ignored that and asked me to sign some stuff about the rules. I told them to go fuck themselves and walked out that door right there. You should know it goes to the parking lot. It's good to know where the exits are in this building."

"You're right about that. You didn't sign anything?"

"Nope. I wouldn't dignify their vicious lies with my signature."

"Good. Did they come after you?"

"No, thank goodness. I'd probably have been arrested. I just wanted to be as far from here as I could be. I wanted it to be dark so I could look for Venus. I needed you, Annie. So desperately."

"I needed you too, but I had to be dead, and you had to be convincing. You had to believe I was dead for it to sell. You had to do everything like you would if I was really dead. If it didn't sell, you and the girls would have been in mortal danger. I could not let that happen."

"In danger from who?"

"The pompous, arrogant ass, Henry Wilcox. He would have had you killed to control me."

Danielle said, "But he's dead now. I keep seeing on the news that he was shot to death in an alley in Hong Kong. They say that he was the worst traitor in the history of the country, that he'd been stopped before he could get to asylum with the Chinese ..." Danielle's voice faded as she thought and studied Annie for another few seconds before she said, "You know that. Right? You know he's dead. That's why we can meet?"

"Yes. I do. I killed him, Danielle. I put two bullets in his evil heart and left him lying face down in a puddle of blood in a back alley in Hong Kong. Then I fled the country just ahead of capture. I just got back here a few hours before Calder Michaels called to invite you here to this meeting. I couldn't stop in California to see you or I would have."

Annie started to cry and moved to embrace her sister again. She said, "I'm an assassin, Dani. I hunted him down and killed him. He was so evil. You remember Jai? Jai saved my life twice. He got his son Jai killed. He sent a hit man after my pregnant boss, Joan. He threatened Auggie. He sent a hit man after Joan's husband, Arthur. He betrayed the country in so many ways we can't even count them all yet. He's dead, and he's still betraying the country. The cancer he gave the country is metastasizing, and I need to kill it too."

She felt Danielle nod, so she continued, "He was going to get away with it and tell the Chinese all he knew, so with no way to take him prisoner and bring him back, I hunted him down, killed him and barely escaped from China with my life."

"Good. I'm glad he's dead."

"I hope someday you can forgive me for all the suffering I caused you and the girls. You are the most important people on the planet to me. I had to keep you safe. I had to make him believe I was dead to get close enough to him to bring him down."

"Annie, you are alive. I forgive you. This isn't about me. I'm not even able to be pissed at you, right now at least. Maybe later, but you already know I'll get over that. What do I tell the girls? And Michael. We have been separated for four months, and the divorce is almost final. We are civil to each other. He was devastated when he heard you'd been killed and livid with rage that anyone would think you were a traitor."

"Were they at the funeral?"

"The only people at your funeral were the pastor, Auggie, Joan and the guy they called Barber. None of them said a bad word about you. They said you were the bravest most courageous person they knew. They wouldn't discuss how you were killed. None of them could look me in the eye and tell me about it. Now I know why. No official CIA presence. No flag. No honor guard. Just ashes and a hole."

"Only Auggie, Calder, and one other person knew I was alive. Joan Campbell and Eric Barber didn't know. Joan learned a week ago. Eric learned just an hour or so before Calder called you."

Danielle was nibbling on her thumb – obviously thinking – and Annie's heart almost stopped because it was obvious she was deciding something. She felt huge relief when Danielle said, "So this was all a huge deception to take down Henry Wilcox, and you pulled it off. My baby sister brought down what the newspapers are calling the biggest traitor in the history of the United States Intelligence Services?"

Calder Michaels said, "Yes. That's exactly what she did."

Danielle's and Annie's heads snapped to face him and he continued, "And while she had some help, the critical initiatives, the brilliant adaptations in real time, the risks – and the risks were huge – were all hers. She volunteered for a mission nobody I know, except her, could have pulled off. I didn't know she could do it, but I couldn't stop her either. There was no plan. There couldn't _be_ a plan because the situation changed too fast and in bizarre ways that were completely unpredictable. She lived on wit, instinct, brains, and raw courage with no support from us. She was under constant threat of death or capture, for five months. I couldn't have done it. If it were up to me, I'd award her with the Distinguished Intelligence Cross. It's the CIA equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Valor, and your sister has earned at least one, really, truth be told, at least two of them."

Annie saw him pause and think hard for a moment. He was apparently trying to put things in perspective for Danielle because he said, "Soldiers have a moment of tremendous courage and perform an act of extreme valor. An act that puts cause ahead of survival. Your sister did it almost continuously for five months. She placed herself in mortal danger twenty-four hours a day pretty much that entire time. She had to inject herself with a drug that stopped her heart; she literally had to commit suicide to convince people she had been shot to death. They checked. She had _no_ pulse. She had no way of knowing in advance if we would be able to get the antidote drug to her in time to save her life, or how much damage it might do to her brain. She was revived in time, but it was within minutes of too late.

"Then there were kill-on-sight orders put out on the identity that she had assumed because of other courageous acts she performed. She knew it and persisted anyway. Then at the end, five days ago, she voluntarily surrendered herself to Henry's goons because it was the only way to get close enough to Henry to kill him. I thought she was going to fail, to be killed, but she overpowered and escaped her captors. She caught up with Henry and killed him just before he would have escaped forever. For that, the country is extremely grateful." He looked directly at Danielle and added, "Everything I just told you is Top Secret, but I hope the knowledge helps you to forgive her."

"I already did. I haven't really gotten my mind around the enormity of her achievement, or the level of self-sacrifice she made, but I have unconditional love for my sister. I may be pissed at her now and then; make that really pissed at her now and then, but I love her, and forgiveness is a foregone conclusion."

"She's lucky to have a sister like you."

"I'm blessed to have a sister like her. But she and I have some things we need to talk about. Her life is a total mess. I was certain she was dead. I _believed_ she was dead. There was no hint that she might still be alive. So I made a lot of decisions in liquidating her estate that aren't reversible and which will place a huge financial burden on both of us."

"Only me, Danielle. I did it. None of this, not one tiny bit, was your fault. You owe nothing. It's all on me."

Calder said, "No, it's all on the CIA. That's why I needed to join you here. You both need to know this: Annie, I was your boss at the time. I authorized your mission; as far as the CIA is concerned, officially, it was a highly compartmentalized but authorized mission. I've already engaged a top rated civilian law firm to help you through the paperwork."

"Calder, I can't pay them-"

"You don't have to. The CIA will pay for all legal fees associated with the mission including any lawsuits or civil suits or damages from Sana or others. That includes the stores where you stole burner phones and the cars and motorcycles you stole. Foreign countries, including Germany and Switzerland, are so glad Henry's not spilling they will forgive you everything you did to make that happen. Just tell us what you did and where, and we'll take care of it. All that is forgiven. We've got your back."

Danielle said, "But I sold Annie's car and truck and spent the money. I used her trust fund from her Aunt, it was one-hundred-twenty thousand dollars, to pay down the Georgetown house loan so we could sell it because we were upside down on it, and it had to be sold as part of the divorce. It sold for cash a month ago and will settle tomorrow. The lawyers are all ready to go. That's why I'm here.

"Michael and I were legally separated before she was ... killed, so I received all of her life insurance pay out. That was three hundred thousand dollars. I spent part of that to buy Michael out of his interest in the California house as part of the divorce and my part of the attorney's fees for the divorce. The rest I used to get my catering business going. Calder, it's gone, and it will have to be paid back, or we will be convicted of insurance fraud."

"I knew all that."

"You knew? You have been spying on me?"

"I thought of it more as looking out for Annie. I knew she was alive; I wasn't sure how long she'd remain in that state, but as long as she did, I was going to have her back. I had the Agency buy her car and truck and store them as evidence. We'll return them to her, have the titles transferred back to her, and pay the taxes on the income to her that represents. The Corvette storage was paid a year in advance so we didn't have to do anything with that. We knew about the trust fund, and we'll refund it to Annie and pay the taxes on it to leave her as she was. And finally, we'll repay the insurance company and deal with any legal repercussions of that. You can keep the insurance payment. We'll officially ask you to sign a release, but you can keep the money. )

"We are, in addition, dealing with her driver's license, concealed carry licenses, passport, and social security records. We're also working to get her firearms transferred back to her name in the Virginia state records."

Annie was dumbfounded. She stared at Calder open mouthed. Finally, she then covered her mouth with her hand, exhaled and sat down literally too weak in her knees to stand up.

She looked up at Danielle, then back at Calder, and said, "Thank you very much. I don't know how you did that, but I sure appreciate it."

"The DCI, DNI, and FBI Director all gave it their full backing. In fact, I had no clue what to do. The DCI gave me a call and told me someone from legal was going to be at my office in ten minutes. That happened ten minutes after I got the call that you were safely on the boat out of Hong Kong harbor. They've been working on it around the clock ever since. They had a good start on it by the time you walked into that meeting. They planned to tell you about that and something else they haven't shared with me, but you pre-empted them with your audible. You do that a lot. I'm relieved it isn't just with me." He chuckled and then continued, "We will also give you all your back pay plus whatever cash you need to set up a new, untraceable safe house. Get a furnished one this time with a bigger safe now that we know about your gun collection. We will also provide the down payment on an apartment, and pay the rent on it for the first two years less what you were paying your sister."

"She was living rent free at my house."

"I thought that might be the case. No problem. We'll cover it all then."

"Oh, and you might thank Auggie, he managed to get pretty much all your stuff that your sister wasn't going to keep and put it in storage for you. It's not all that well packed, but it's there. Danielle, you have her scrap book from her travels, right?"

"Yes, that and the Venus card are how I wanted to remember her."

She clouded up and was about to start crying again, when Annie said, "We have to stop crying. Calder will think we're nothing but babies."

Calder said, "Actually, I'm glad to see you cry. You were so bottled up in the dark it was scary. Sana told me you were as cold as a machine. I was afraid you were going to come apart at the seams, and you never let anything out. You just sucked it up and kept going when I wanted to quit. I thought you might explode."

Danielle gave a nervous laugh and said, "She's like that. She's always been like that. She stared down the dark. I'd have a light on, but Annie just stared down the dark and wouldn't have a light no matter how scared she got. We lived all over the world, sometimes in scary places, and she'd always go out in the dark of the night, at every new place and walk around it just to prove she owned it."

Calder looked at Annie who calmly looked him right back in the eye. Calder said, "I had no idea, but it fits. It all fits."

Then Annie, having had a few seconds to process everything, looked at Calder and said, "Are you sure they won't change their mind when they see the bill? It's going to come to well over half a million bucks with legal fees, or more, by the time they are done and everything is back to as normal as it will ever get. They could run into a battle with the vendors in Europe. They'll need a legal firm over there too."

"No problem. This sounds cold and economic, but it's real: Annie, pretty much all on your own you stopped Henry from destroying thirty billion in intelligence infrastructure that would have had to be immediately scrapped and rebuilt, on their watch, on the budget they would have had to go and beg from Congress, and they know it. They were facing a bureaucrat's worst nightmare. You aborted the other defector's efforts before she'd spilled more than about five percent of what she knew, near as we can tell. That's another two or three billion in infrastructure saved. In addition, a few hundred assets are going to survive that would have been hunted down and killed before they could have been ex-filtrated, if that was even possible. You may be the most productive spy in history. No way are they going to take it back."

"I don't have any leverage on them Calder. They can do what they want."

"Yes, they can, and what they want to do is make you whole, or at least as whole as they can given the irrevocable price you paid in stress and mental fatigue."

Danielle looked at Calder and back at Annie and said, "Annie, can we go out to dinner together? Maybe get some ice cream."

Annie looked at Calder, and when she looked back at Danielle, she could tell her sister had picked up on the tension in that look. Danielle said, "What? Why not? You aren't a prisoner, right?"

"Danni, I hadn't gotten to the punch line. It isn't over yet. Someone is still after me for revenge or to shut me up."

"OhmyGod! My kids-"

Calder interjected, "I don't think they will go after them, but I have had them covered 24/7 by a twelve man protection detail of Federal Marshals since this issue appeared about three days ago. There are four men on them at all times. I have you covered too. They were with you and the girls on the plane here, followed you in traffic, and watched your motel. They are in the rooms on either side and above you. They will stay with you until this is over; unless you will let us put you and the kids into Witness Protection until Annie gets the rest of them."

Danielle turned to her and said, "Annie, you got him. It's in the paper. He's dead. What's going on? Why isn't it over?"

"We didn't know he wasn't the only one. He apparently has co-conspirators. I was attacked on the way home from China. The attack came in an Agency leased plane on an Air Force Base in Okinawa only nineteen or twenty hours after I killed Henry. That means there is someone in a position of power who is still trying to save themselves by taking me out."

"My kids are in danger-"

Annie interjected forcefully, "No, Danielle. We have them covered, but I'd feel a lot better if you would let FBI Agent Rossabi take you and the girls into Witness Protection. It would guarantee your safety until we find and stop whoever is left. We have a really good team supporting me now. Plus, the Director of the CIA, the Director of the FBI, and the Director of National Intelligence are behind us 100%."

"How do you know they aren't part of it?"

"I saw their eyes when I told them my story, and they aren't good enough actors to have staged that reaction. I'm really good at reading people, Dani; it's how I stay alive. Let me use my skill to keep you alive without having to be killed again."

"Will we be able to see you?"

"You won't be able to see anybody you know until this is over. If you do anything to violate the terms of the Witness Protection, you could be found and killed or get me killed."

"This pisses me off. Not at you, at whoever the sons-a-bitches are that are doing this. Put me in a room with them; I'll cut their hearts out with a dull butter knife."

"I know the feeling, but I have to control it. I put all that in a compartment and close it-"

"Just like you buried your friends' pictures in a box in the back yard every time we moved."

"Just like that, only I do it in my head now. It's called compartmentalizing. I'm good at it but it really hurts to open the box like we did in this meeting. Can you do that for me, Danni? Can you take the girls and go into Witness Protection till this is over?"

"I will if you will explain it to Katia and Chloe."

"Where are they?"

Calder said, "They are at their old pre-school with four federal marshals around them. We could have them here in thirty minutes."

Danielle said, "You are serious about the protection detail."

"Dead serious."

"I need to go get them. Can you take me safely there and bring us back?"

"Absolutely. We'll also grab everything from your motel room. Are you agreeing to go into protection?"

"Yes, if Annie can explain it to Chloe and Katia. And do what she calls, read them in."

"I'll explain it."

Calder said, "You may read them in."

"Then we're in."

Annie said, "Give Calder all your electronics: phone, iPad, anything that's electronic. They will give you new ones that are clean and untraceable. Your Facebook and Twitter accounts will be de-activated for the duration as well any other electronic accounts."

"What about my business?"

Calder said, "We'll cover your losses and help you get it started again. I hope that this won't take too long and your customers won't be too upset. Now, I need to make the call. I'll be right back."

Danielle turned to Annie and said, "I need a potty break.

* * *

**EN:** If you have comments, thoughts, ideas, I'd love to have you share them in a review or PM.


	7. Connections

Hi-jacked / FRW

9

**AN:** Here we go. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Once again thanks to my mentors, AleciaB, Patricia Louise, and Gwynne. I'm enjoying this story. The sequel is nicely started as well.

I own nothing.

* * *

**Chapter 7**

**Connections**

**9:40 AM Day 4, same conference room, Langley, VA:**

Annie knew they were in the gate and was standing when Danielle, Chloe, and Katia entered the room. Danielle must have told the girls Annie was alive because they had tears running down their faces and charged over to her. Annie got down on one knee and caught one of them in each arm. They couldn't talk. Finally, Chloe said, "Aunt Annie, are you okay?"

"I will be. I ... I'm a little injured, like an accident, but I've had a hard time."

"Mom said you were dead."

"She thought I was, Chloe. She sat in this very room, and they told her I was dead. Then she went to my funeral and saw an urn with what she thought had my ashes in it buried in the ground. She thought I'd been killed, but it was a fake death."

Katia said, "Why did you fake your death?"

"Girls, can I tell you something very important and trust you to never, ever, tell anyone else?"

Chloe said, "Yes. Is it because we are in this spy building?"

Katia said, "I don't think it's this building, I think it's Aunt Annie."

Annie said, "Yes, it's me. I need to tell you something about me so you will understand what I'm going to ask you to do."

"Is it bad?" Katia asked.

"No sweetheart. Do you both promise never to tell anyone? Ever?"

She got a chorus of, "Yes!"

"Girls, I'm a spy. I work for the CIA."

Chloe said, "The Central Intelligence Agency, right? That was mentioned in school."

"Exactly right. But, no matter what they say about it in school, even if it's something bad, don't argue with them. Don't say anything. You know me. You know I'm a good person."

Chloe asked, "How long have you been a spy?"

"Four years."

"Why are you telling us now?"

"Because a bad man is trying to kill me, and he will threaten to kill you to make me surrender, so you have to hide. Go into Witness Protection."

"Like 'In Plain Sight'?"

"Yes, exactly like that, but not for a long time, just until the FBI can catch the bad guys."

Katia said, "We can't call any of our friends in California, or here either, right? Or Dad, or you either?"

"Or your Dad or me either. That's right, but I hope it will be over very quickly."

Chloe and Katia looked at each other, then back at Annie and nodded. Annie said, "Girls, tell me. 'I won't tell anybody about this. Ever'."

They looked very serious and said together, "I won't tell anybody about this, ever."

"Thanks girls. I'm really looking forward to when this is over and you can go home, but you can't tell anybody your Aunt Annie is a spy even then. That stays a secret forever."

Chloe said, "Yeah, I get it."

Katia said, "Me too."

Chloe added, "It's really cool to have such a brave aunt."

Annie said, "No matter how proud you are of me, you can't tell anybody. Even your Dad."

Chloe said, "We know. It's still really cool. You're really cool. It's an even better secret."

Calder said, "Say good-bye to your Aunt Annie for now. She can't see the person that comes to take you to your new home. That way she can't tell anyone where you are."

The two girls gave Annie a hug. She told them both, "I love you." Then she stood up and gave Danielle a hug while she told her, "I love you. Take good care of you and the girls. I'll get you out of there as soon as I can."

Unable to trust herself not to cry, Annie turned and rapidly walked out of the room.

# # #

**10:15 AM Day 4, Calder Michael's DCS Office:**

Annie came through the door into the administrative assistant's area. Calder's administrative assistant looked up and said, "Do you have an appointment?"

Annie smiled back at her and said, "I have a standing appointment," walked to the door and knocked.

Calder's assistant tried to get between Annie and the door, but something in Annie's eyes stopped her in her tracks. Maybe, the woman knew Annie was a killer. Whatever the reason, she stood aside. Annie raised her fist and knocked. When there was no response, she opened the door and stepped inside. Calder was looking intently at the door – tense and ready to act. He relaxed a little when he saw it was Annie.

"Yes?" Calder's voice carried a flat 'what now' note.

Annie walked in, shut the door in the administrative assistant's face and said, "Joan, Arthur, and baby Mac need protection. So do the Abbotts, including their daughter Betsy. Even better, they need to move in here or go into WitSEC till we get these people."

"Give me some credit, Walker. I tried to get the Abbotts in here, but they insist on staying home. So I have rotating, four-person protection details composed of Federal Marshals on them around the clock. Right now, the Abbotts know they are being protected and have invited the team in. They have two live-in Federal Marshals. They've had them since the Colonel agreed to help you get home. They have agreed to the protection detail. Their daughter Betsy has also agreed, but she doesn't know it's related to you. She thinks it's because of some work her Dad did. Apparently, that's happened before. She's okay with it."

"Thank you. I keep trying to figure out who they might go after to get to me. It turns out I have more vulnerabilities than I thought. How about Joan and Arthur?"

"Both Joan and Arthur are armed and capable, as they've recently shown-"

"Arthur only has one useful arm at the moment."

"He isn't anything like in your class, but at across the room distances, he's just fine with a handgun. He's old school. 1911 but with a laser grip on it."

"I'm not a fan of lasers. Too slow, too hard to find the dot in a hurry. An FNX45T with an RMR02 holo sight, fifteen plus one of forty-five ACP, that's a different story. I'd loan him mine, but he wouldn't have practiced with it. He's better off with what he has. But, if he wants one, I can get him one all zeroed with three loaded magazines in less than 4 hours. It has the RMR02 holo sight, night sights, and I have a suppressor too-"

"Annie! ... stop." When she did, he continued, "Anything else?"

"No. Okay. Thanks. Sorry for barging in. I really need to block Henry's agents off from anybody they can use against us. These people are ruthless. They have to know Henry sent hit men after Joan and Arthur. They must have agreed with it." Annie thought she heard a sound as if someone brushed against the door behind her.

"That's why I'm not upset with you right now. You're right to be worried, and I understand why you didn't use the phone. So, it's no problem, but please don't make a habit of it in this office. When I'm in here, I have a lot of balls in the air."

Annie wanted to see if she would hear it again, so she continued the conversation, "Noted. Different topic: Why did they come after me as they did – why not let the sleeping dog lie, as the saying goes? Their timetable made it clear they were allies of Henry and not a legacy left over from a previous case, like the Philly warehouse. The corollary question is: what do I know that makes it so vital that they took the risk on a military base?"

"Maybe it isn't what you know, but what someone you know knows?"

"You may be onto something there." Annie paused, heard the sound a third time, and thought a moment. "That just sounds right."

She paused again, held up a finger, quickly turned, and yanked the door open to find the administrative assistant standing on the other side with her ear turned to the door. Annie reacted without hesitation. She grabbed the woman and threw her over her shoulder to land in a disheveled mess in the middle of Calder's office floor.

Calder said, "What the hell-"

"She was listening. She had her ear to the door. Look, you can see a faint pattern of moisture where her ear was against the door. I was standing right here by the door the whole time. I thought I heard a noise like brushing against the door. I wrote it off once, but twice, it wasn't a coincidence." Annie looked in Calder's direction, winked, then turned then turned and advanced slowly toward the secretary. "Up to you ...," she shrugged one shoulder, "but I'd isolate her in one of the cells in the Doom Wing, pump her full of truth serum, find out what she knows, then kill her, slowly. I've heard that scopolamine is particularly effective, though occasionally deadly. It has some really unpleasant side effects. There are drugs that cause excruciating pain and don't leave a mark. I haven't killed anybody in almost four days. Want me to take care of it for you?"

The woman's eyes grew wide in fear; she scrambled away across the floor whimpering as Annie advanced on her. Calder said, obviously playing along, "While I agree in principle, I'll take care of it. I have more important things for you to do."

Annie could see the fact that Calder didn't say no sinking in on the poor woman. She was in way over her head.

Calder said, "I'll arrange for her arrest and isolation. She's automatically an enemy of the state for spying on me, so we can hold her until hell freezes over. She's single; nobody will miss her. I got this, Walker."

Annie kept up the deception and said, "You get to have all the fun. Okay, I'm outta here, but if you change your mind ..." turned and left, closing the door behind her.

# # #

**7:30 AM Day 5, Annie's Team Office:**

Annie and Auggie stopped at the door to the team office. They were clearly comfortable in one another's space. Fresh from a good night and a cafeteria breakfast with second coffees and easy conversation, any acute observes would have pegged them as a couple. But, professionals to their toenail tips, their conduct left no room for anyone to suggest 'get a room' either.

Annie punched the code, placed her index finger on the reader, pulled open the door, and came to such a sudden stop she almost spilled her coffee when she saw the change in the office. Barber and a slender, quick moving, pleasantly attractive Chinese woman had apparently just finishing un-boxing and connecting a bunch of computer terminals and servers. There was what looked like a short server table along the outside window wall. It had machines both on top of it and underneath with all sorts of other things she didn't recognize and wires everyplace. There were terminals arranged around the right wall and on the other side of the blackout curtain on the hall side. There was a huge display screen over the terminals on the right wall, and there was a terminal on her desk that was now on the left wall. She could sit with her back to the wall with the whole room and the door in view, but her screen was hidden from casual view.

Auggie bumped into her and then heard sounds. Barber said, "Hi guys. How's it look?"

Annie said, "Wow. I'm impressed. It's just what I wanted. How'd you get that done so quickly?"

"Annie, meet Sarah Tam. I was still here and got a call that she was at the front gate about one this morning. I got her in here, and she was ready to go - time differences, jet lag, or something. Anyway, the tables, terminals, cables, and servers arrived from downstairs just after you left yesterday; IT had the cable run, so we just unpacked and got them set up."

By the time Barber finished, Sarah had walked over to Annie, offered her hand and said, "Hi, Auggie. Annie, I'm Sarah. I was Auggie's second in command in Hong Kong. I'm glad to finally meet you, and I'm very glad you got out of there alive. It didn't look good there for while."

"Hi Sarah. Yes, I'm Annie Walker. It's nice to meet you, too. You come highly recommended. And thank you very much for the unquestioning support. I was in deep yogurt there for a while."

"You're welcome. I like this setup. This is pretty cool. I'm a fan of close teams. Barber says we're going to be a mixed agency team, FBI and CIA?"

"Yes. We will have Supervisory Special Agent Jo Bell and Supervisory Special Agent in Charge Megan Burk, both from the Philadelphia FBI office, joining us in here. They will be badged into the DPD and this team with full clearance and need to know."

"That's what Barber said. I've not heard of that happening before, even at the embassy. Is that common here?"

"Not really, but these women will work with us seamlessly. Auggie and I have teamed with them before. Pretend we are all in the same organization but from different departments. Hold nothing back; they are totally trust worthy; they will give it all they have, and they will be able to pull in anything we need from the FBI and help us with warrants, especially FISA warrants, without having to wade through the CIA legal division. They are less likely to have moles in their home office than we are here. We're not sharing anything outside this room in this building.

"We have one more FBI Agent, SSAIC Vincent Rossabi, but he won't be in here. He's part of the Washington office and has been a frequent contact in the past. But I prefer him on the outside, not because I don't trust him, but because I think he can do more for us there."

"Got it. Barber told me about the data isolation and the biometric lock that was installed on the door this morning. I better get back to the terminals. We have apps loading on some of the servers, need to get the rest up."

"I got a text last night that Megan and Jo will be in here in about an hour – probably up here two hours later after running the badge gauntlet. You think we'll be operational by then."

Sarah looked at Barber who nodded so she said, "Not completely, but we'll have at least three of the six terminals and all of the servers fully functional. We put in three, water-cooled, quad core, sixteen gig servers with two terminals each, one for you and Auggie, one for the two FBI folks, One for Barber and me. We also added a fourth machine as a backup disk farm with about 40 terabytes of storage on it running RAID1."

Annie said, "Water cooled RAID what? Should I be wearing a vest?"

Auggie said, "Fast. Real time redundancy. Hot backup."

Sarah smiled and said, "Okay, English, right?"

Annie found herself liking this new techno-wizard. She chuckled, and then she said, "You've broken the code. I don't speak geek."

Sarah said, "No problem. Auggie can translate. Now I gotta get busy." She turned to seamlessly pick up working with Barber on the system set up.

Annie said in Auggie's ear, "I'm going to like her. Is she as smart as I think she might be?"

"Multiply it by five, and you'll get close."

"Wow."

"Yeah. I was impressed."

Just then, Annie's phone rang. It was the Civilian entrance gate reporting Jo and Megan's arrival. Annie said, "Have them wait there. I'll be right down."

# # #

**8:06 AM, Day 5, Atrium office, one of several, Langley Civilian Entrance Gate:**

Annie approached from inside and saw Megan and Jo looking out the window at the civilian parking lot. The other one for employees couldn't be seen from here. She wasn't able to get very close before Jo's senses picked up someone approaching. Her head turned, and her eyes flicked over Annie. She stopped and scanned her again as her eyes opened wide for a split second, and then, before Megan could even react, Jo had scooped Annie into a hug and said, "You look like hell, but I'm very glad to see you."

Annie made a noise of pain from the hug but returned it anyway. Jo let Annie go just in time for Megan to arrive and give her a more gentle hug.

When Megan let her go a few second later, Annie said, "I'm really glad to see you guys. Thank you for coming. You'll get the whole story as soon as we get you inside. We need to get your badges and get you in the system. It will take a while. You are about to experience the full gamut of CIA paranoia."

Jo, not to be put off, said, "Are you all right. You don't look like you are all right. I think you are injured."

"Some cracked and bruised ribs, bruises all over. I'm not okay in my head yet, but I will be. Honest. Let me get Calder down here. I don't think I can do this by myself. They barely know I'm alive. My badge could self-destruct like a mission impossible tape at any moment. I haven't even been outside the gate to see if I can get back in. I'll be right back."

She went over to where the security guards were sitting behind the bulletproof glass. Just as she was about to speak, one of the guards said, "We'll get .. him ... Calder, for you, Miss Walker. And thank you for what you did."

Annie's jaw must have dropped because the other guard said, "Everybody knows it was you. You're our hero. You need anything, you got it."

Annie was speechless. The guards here were utterly impersonal, had the interactive people skills of an early model Disney audio animatronics robot and were about as excitable as sacks of cement. She said, "Th ... thanks. I ... don't know what to say."

The first guard said, "You don't have to say anything. Your actions speak for you. We'll deny we ever said this of course, destroy our whole image as palace guards, but we are _really_ proud of you."

"Thanks guys. Much appreciated. By the way, just to set the record straight, Calder Michaels had my back the entire time. His part was absolutely vital to the mission success. Please pass the word directly from me that he's a genuine good guy. Okay?"

"Wow. Got it. Will do. Thanks for that."

Annie walked back to Jo and Megan and said, "Let's sit down; Calder is on the way."

Megan said, "Where's Joan?"

"Home with her new son, Mackenzie Campbell. My gambit threw the system here into a tailspin. Calder is acting for Joan at the moment. Just so you know, he had my back the whole time I was dark. He's one of the good guys no matter what you might have heard. He shot me in the chest with four nine-millimeter target loads that would barely cycle the gun. I was wearing a vest. He didn't miss the vest, thank goodness. Hurt like hell later, but when I died, the pain went away."

"You really died?"

"I injected myself with a drug that stopped my heart just as the elevator doors opened."

"Yikes!"

"Yeah. I got the antidote just in time. But the bad guys checked for a pulse on the way out of the building, and I didn't have one, so it worked."

"You trust him?" Megan asked.

"I trusted him with my life. Literally. More than once. He didn't let me down."

"Okay. That's good enough for us."

Megan finally said, "You look ridden hard and put away wet."

"It has been a rough five months. I can't leave Langley. I have a price on my head. If these windows weren't bulletproof and like mirrors from the outside, I wouldn't be sitting here. We need to succeed with this project in order for me to be free on my own again."

"You're still a target?"

"Yeah. You'd think I'd be use to it by now, but it still sucks. At least I don't have the police forces of every nation on the planet looking for me anymore – only a few hit men."

Jo gasped and said, "Seriously?"

"Did you get an arrest on sight, armed and considered extremely dangerous, for a Jessica Mathews?"

"Yes, we did. We didn't have a picture. Was that you?"

"Yes. Jessica Mathews was my cover ID at the time. Henry made that arrest order happen. More after we get into a cleared area. But, I really need your help to find the person or persons that are still after me. I know I can trust you guys, and a few others, but that's pretty much the entire part of the population that isn't in the suspect pool."

Jo just shook her head and said, "Wow. You never do anything half way do you?"

Annie saw Calder approaching on the other side of the glass door, said, "Here he comes," and stood up. Jo and Megan joined her. Calder strode up with his usual intensity and stopped just beyond their personal space. His eyes scanned the three of them. Annie said, "Acting DCS Calder Michaels, SSAIC Megan Burk, and Supervisory Special Agent Jo Bell. Megan, Jo, Calder Michaels, head of the DPD and acting DCS."

Calder said, "Pleased to meet you," and shook hands briefly with both women. Then he turned to Annie and said, "I have to take them in through the whole system to get them badged for unescorted entry. It includes fingerprints, retinal scans, blood samples, polygraph, the whole nine yards. It's going to take two or three hours depending on how backed up they are. It's complicated by the fact that we need to keep them separate from other CIA employees until the process is complete. This is a first for the DPD. Took a while to figure out how to do it. We just got the data package on them from the FBI for comparison about ten minutes ago. If you wish, you can head back up to the team room, and I'll get this done. It will also give us a chance to get acquainted."

Annie didn't mistake his statement as a request. She had to follow at least some orders from her boss, so she said, "That works for me," turned to the two women and said, "See you at the team room. Really glad you are here."

They nodded; she nodded at Calder, headed out through the door and hoped Calder would at least try to be pleasant.

# # #

**11:40 AM Day 5, Annie's team room, Langley:**

Barber and Sarah had her terminal up when she arrived at her office/team room, so she sat at the desk and did some preparation for her upcoming kickoff meeting. She was lost in thought, making notes, and completely oblivious to the time when Auggie's voice startled her out of her zone.

"Annie, let's get some lunch. Eric and Sarah have this place ready to go. Calder called and said they will be another hour, but the poly's, interview, blood samples, and fingerprints are all out of the way. They are going to get something to eat. When lunch is over, they have only a few more forms and a retinal scan. They should be good to go at that point."

Anne took one last look at her notes, and then said, "I'm in, provided we pass by a ladies room on the way."

"No problem. There's at least one between here and there that I've been in before."

She playfully punched his arm and said, "Yeah, I remember being there with you on my second day. God, I was such a novice."

"But a talented novice. Com'on , I'm digesting myself. I want a meat lover's special subway. You in?"

"Make mine a six inch turkey and ham on wheat, toasted, with double pepper jack, tomato slices, south west sauce, hot peppers, green peppers, onions, and lettuce and you have a deal."

"That'll work. Whatcha want to put the fire out?"

"Big Orange soda."

"Let's do this." She brushed his hand. He put his hand on her arm then said, "You put on a new outfit?"

"Yeah, you like it?"

Auggie chuckled and said, "Can I look at it?"

Annie knew he meant feel them for texture and fit and said, "Later, Casanova," and lead him out of the office.

As they left, she heard Sarah ask Eric, "Are they always like that?" but the door closed before she could hear the answer.

Being back together for the last two days had them closer than they'd ever been. As a result, they walked in companionable silence, comfortably in each other's space. Auggie's green laser cane quested about, and his hand remained in pleasant contact with her arm just above the elbow. A couple of minutes before they would arrive at the cafeteria Auggie tugged on Annie so she stopped and turned to face him. "We alone?" he asked.

Her habitual situational awareness allowed her to answer with no hesitation, "At the moment, yes."

She could see he was struggling with what he was going to say next so she moved closer and said quietly, "Say it, Auggie. It's okay; whatever it is we'll work through it. I won't run."

"Annie, I know we agreed that we're exclusive and not in a hurry when we got to pillow talk. But, with the turbulence of today, the sense of urgency, I feel like we're being caught in a spring flood. We're like two wood chips that try to stay together but remain unconnected on a flooding river. I don't think that's going to work for us. I want a solid connection to you. I don't want some random wave to wash us apart never to find each other again. I don't want any more speculation about whether or not we should be together. We came too close this time."

"Auggie, I feel the same. I want that connection, too." She looked around, reached for and held both his hands. She decided put it all out there and said, "Auggie, I feel that connection. It's there for me, and I know it's there for you. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but one thing won't change: I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"

His face relaxed into a joyous smile, and then he pulled her close for a quick kiss and said, "Yes. Yes, I'll marry you. That commitment is exactly the connection I want. And married to you is what I want to be."

Annie squeezed his hands, kissed him back, and said, "That's good for me. We have other things to talk through before we meet at the altar, but with that commitment, we'll get there. Now, I'm ready for lunch and whatever else life brings. You?"

"Definitely ready for some food, but let me add, I want to catch these people so we can go buy you an engagement ring without having the Seals stake out the store and stand guard with machine guns."

Annie leaned forward and said, "They are between me and my engagement ring. They should be afraid. They should be _very_ afraid."

Auggie chuckled and said, "Food, Walker. I was promised food."

"Auggie?"

"Yes."

"Did we just decide where I'm going to live when the targets are off my chest?"

"As far as I'm concerned, yes. You are moving into my apartment as soon as it's safe to do so."

"Good. Now I'm ravenous too."

They started walking again, and she said, "Would it be okay with you if we keep this between us till we get the ring?"

"Yes, I think that's a good idea with one exception."

"Who would that be?"

"I'd like to tell Joan and Arthur."

"Me too. But in person. Together."

Auggie stopped again, and when Annie turned to him, he said, "We need to plan a trip to Glencoe. I'd be so proud to introduce you to my family. They are going to love you to pieces."

"I'd like that. I'd like that very much. Soon?"

"As soon as we can get out of here without ducking bullets. You can be armed, but I don't want to take Peters with us."

She rose up on her tiptoes, gave him a quick kiss and said, "This has been a heck of a day, and it isn't even afternoon yet. Life with you is going to be interesting. Food?"

"Yes. But, if I just grin all the way through the line, don't be surprised. I don't think I've ever been this happy. I'm basically euphoric at the moment."

"Me too Auggie. Here's the entrance."

* * *

**EN:** If you have some thoughts, please share them with me in a review. I respond to all reviews by registered users. I've learned quite a bit from the exchange of views. Thanks to those who made that possible. You know who you are.

01/28/2014


	8. Kick Off Meeting

Hi-jacked / FRW

12

**AN:** This was the hardest chapter in the story to write. Interestingly enough, the end of it is exactly the half way point of the story. I'll be really interested in your response to it.

Again, my thanks to my mentors for their comments. I don't own anything, but I sure have fun playing with the characters from Covert Affairs.

* * *

**Chapter 8**

**Team Kickoff Meeting**

**1:00 PM Day 5, Langley, Annie's Office/Team Room:**

Annie and Auggie returned to the room to find everybody there. Jo and Megan had just arrived. Annie let go of Auggie's hand, and as he moved into the room, Jo and Megan came over to greet him. Megan said, "Auggie, nice to see you."

"Agent Burk, very glad you're here. Agent Bell, you must be close as well."

"Hi, Auggie, Yes, I'm right here." She took the offered hand and passed him off to Megan. Then couldn't resist saying, "Hey, Walker, nice threads ... and shoes. They're ... uh ... practical."

Annie laughed and said, "Yeah, my heels are all in a box someplace."

Barber and Sarah were already seated. Calder had been called away a moment after Annie arrived. She waited until Megan, Jo, and Auggie were seated then said, "Time to get this show on the road. First of all, has everybody been introduced?"

There was a chorus of, "yes's."

"I'll brief Agent Rossabi separately. He'll be operating off site. Probably Jo and Megan wish they were after the ordeal of getting their new badges."

Megan said, "I think it was easier for you to be a fully credentialed FBI Agent than it was for us to just get in the door. But, we're here, and we understand our badges are good for at least five years with annual renewal. Let's hope this doesn't take that long."

Sarah said, "Annie, you're FBI? I thought you were CIA."

"I am definitely a CIA covert officer. However, I have a NOC with the FBI as Special Agent Betty Lou Tarantino, a fully credentialed, anti-terrorist expert. It was created for the extension of the case where I met Agents Burk and Bell. The rest of it isn't relevant to the current case."

Annie turned in Megan's direction and said, "Megan, I hope it won't take five years, but if it takes longer, I'll get your badge renewed. How's that for motivation?"

"Powerful!"

Annie laughed. Then, as she thought about the story she was about to tell, the laughter died on her lips, and she said, "Let me start at the beginning. We need to share a thorough understanding of the situation and be able to use the same terminology. I'm going to give you a fully detailed background account – the story of how we all came to this moment. It will include all significant personnel contacts. I am also very concerned that you know where my head is so that we don't make a mistake due to emotion on my part. This is very definitely a situation where what you don't know could hurt our chances. Therefore, I'm going to tell you everything about the most recent five, almost six, months of my life in brutally ugly detail. Some parts of this are going to be very hard for me to tell, and probably equally hard to hear, so please bear with me. This will be the first time I've ever told the whole story. Calder and Auggie know parts of it, but even they will hear things they don't know. In some cases, I'm the only one that knows because I'm the only survivor. Some of this story is going to be nearly impossible to articulate. Please be patient."

Annie spent the next two hours telling the story of her pursuit of Henry. She began with Jai's assassination and then jumped to her meeting with Henry in that same restaurant several months later. She brought up the contents of the file she'd gotten from Henry and went through it on the screen, then showed them where it was stored. From there her story took them through her mission related adventures of the last five months. Eventually she neared the point when she must tell them about being killed and going dark. Her voice grew faint and the hesitations more frequent, but in time, she got the story out to the point where she left Eyal and headed into the train station. She didn't name the Israeli agent who had literally saved her life.

There hadn't been a single comment from the team up until she mentioned being revived in the van. Jo asked, "Who gave you the shot?"

Annie said, "That's the one piece of information I can't, and won't, divulge to this group. Including him and me, only three people on the planet know who that was, and it's going to stay that way."

"Okay. You're positive that's not the person we're looking for."

"Absolutely positive. I'd bet my life on it. Auggie would too. In fact, he has, twice. I have bet my life on that person several times, and I'm still here. Jo, I trust him probably ten times as much as you trust me."

Jo said softly, "Annie, you know that's impossible."

Annie knew there was no reply to that. She looked around; there were no more questions at that point, so she continued. She could tell they were taken aback with the story of the capture, interrogation, and eventual killing of Hughes. She saw Sarah looking at her with wide eyes. She decided it might be time for a break and said, "It's been nearly three hours. I need a break. Let's take fifteen. Go get some coffee or whatever, and we'll meet back here at quarter-to-four."

Annie left the room and headed to the ladies room. She was in the end stall when Jo and Sarah entered. "... incredible tale," Sarah said. "Auggie just sat there blank faced and accepted it as if it were fact, so it must be. But, I've never heard anything like it."

Jo replied, "I think we haven't even gotten to the tough part yet. What we've heard so far is day care stuff for Annie."

"Seriously?" Sarah sounded incredulous.

Annie said, "Guys, I'm in here."

Sarah wasn't the least bit embarrassed and asked, "You and Jo have some scary history?"

Annie said, "Yes. We do."

"Can you share?"

"I'd rather not. But if Jo wants to, it's okay with me. I just don't want to go there right now. It was pretty intense."

"What you are telling us in there is intense."

"Not by comparison, but it will be soon enough."

Annie emerged from the stall to find the other two looking in her direction. She laughed a little nervously and said, "I hate talking through doors."

"So do I," the other two replied perfectly in synch.

Then it was all right because they all chuckled; Annie finished washing her hands, dried them, looked at her hair, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "See you back at the office."

On the way back to the room, Annie caught up with Calder when he turned into the hallway. She asked, "You going to join us?"

"Yes, I asked Barber to tell me when you got to the part where we were in China. You're there?"

"Yes, just about to talk about turning Oliver Lee. This is good timing. I'd like you to hear in detail what happened after I left you, Oliver, and Auggie in the car."

He stopped to let her precede him through the door then said, "From the car to the yacht is the part I'm most interested in."

"What happened in DC while I was between the alley and Kadena is what I'm interested in."

Calder said, "Me too. And I was here."

Jo and Sarah were the last of the group to return to the room. Annie could tell they had talked. Jo had probably shared a little about the warehouse action, but there hadn't been time for the full story; it took an hour or more to relate. Sarah caught Annie's eye and mouthed "Wow" before taking her seat. Clearly, she had heard something that impressed her.

Annie could feel her internal tension build as she described her entry into the Hong Kong police station and the impromptu turning of Oliver Lee. She had followed her lead into the lion's den and turned the head lion into an ally to get out. She could hear the emotion in her voice but couldn't do anything about it. She also saw concern on Jo and Megan's faces. Barber looked like he was going to say something, so she said, "Let me get through this, Eric, then I'm good for questions. I think Auggie is recording this anyway, right, Auggie?"

"Yes. I'll get it converted to text as a reference. You may also find it convenient when you write your report."

"Thanks."

The break gave her an opportunity to gather herself and breathe. It carried her to the moment when she stepped out of the car and left Calder and Auggie to travel to the airport with Oliver. It was, for her, almost the point of no return.

Her conclusion that she couldn't take Henry back to the U.S. was the real point of no return. If he returned to the States alive and free, he would continue his attacks until she was dead; it was him, or it was her. Her audience seemed to understand how that led to her decision to surrender to Henry's goons. She allowed herself to be captured, so she could get close to Henry and kill him. She could see them all, including Calder, react to that decision. She could tell this subject would come up again with him, but for the moment, she pushed that out of her mind and focused on what had happened. She told it as objectively and clinically as she could, and it still sounded scary even to her. She took them through the car ride and her arrival at Lexington Global and the scorpion fable interchange with Henry.

Her most difficult time came when she described what happened when the first team attacked Lexington Global. When her brain fast-forwarded to the part where she found herself on one knee with a gun pressed to her head while she had a pistol aimed at Henry, she closed her eyes and turned around because she was unprepared for how hard just the thought of revisiting that moment hit her. Her throat locked; her brain stopped for a few seconds before she could take a shaky breath.

Auggie said, "Let's take a break-"

She shouted, "NO!" followed by a whispered, "no." The voice sounded so different she almost asked who said that. She paused and then continued in a softer voice, "No. Auggie, I know you are trying to give me a moment to get my leaves in the basket, but I need to do this now or I'll never do it. Nobody left alive except me knows what I'm going to tell you next. I've got to get it out, or I won't be able to face it myself, and I have to face it if we are going to have a life." She took a deep breath, turned around to face them, and said, "One of Henry's people came in, and told him the phone, power, and security were down as well as cell reception. I didn't think it was a coincidence. I don't think Henry did either, because he showed real irritation for the first time. It showed in his voice and on his face when he said, 'I know, fix it,' and sent the guy back out of the room."

Sarah interjected, "You were right; Auggie and I had just finished cloaking the building."

Annie nodded at Sarah but continued, "A very short time after that, the office was attacked by a heavily geared up professional assault team. Those I saw were all in black, had comm. gear, vests, boots, no markings, submachine guns and lots of ammo. There was chaos: submachine gun fire and people getting shot to bits all over the place. I had hoped for a rescue attempt that would let me kill Henry and escape, but this wasn't a team coming to help me. It was apparent to me that this team had not been sent by Auggie. They were firing indiscriminately at anything and anybody that moved with no regard for windows or stray bullets outside the building.

I was simultaneously trying to keep track of Henry and avoid being shot. It was not friendly fire. It was an indiscriminate slaughter. The team was trying to kill everybody in the office on sight, and they were succeeding. Henry's guys would step out from cover, fire one short burst and die. The gunfire was nearly continuous. I had a hard time keeping myself out of the adrenaline tunnel. I had to keep my brain from going into lockdown to survive. I forced myself to shift my gaze to avoid lock on and loss of full awareness, or I'd be killed with them.

"I was in total sensory overload for what followed. This is as close as I can get to the facts after having revisited it in my mind once or twice.

"Henry's goon and my guard tipped a table on its side and maneuvered Henry and me behind it. The table was a joke. Bullets would come right through it. The guard with Henry moved him out to stand behind a structural column and left me behind. The guard that was supposed to be watching me stood up like a fool to shoot back at the assault team members. That attracted their fire at chest level and kept me alive for another few seconds. He was killed almost instantly but dropped his gun where I could reach it.

"I saw my chance to kill Henry, so I grabbed that gun, moved to where I had a shot at Henry, rose up on one knee with the front sight right on his head. Our eyes met; I heard a voice behind me say, 'put the gun down,' and then my vision jiggled when I felt the muzzle of a pistol slammed against the crown of my skull. Henry said, 'Don't shoot her.' The man holding the gun said again, 'Put the gun down,' or something like that. I don't distinctly remember the words, just the sense of them.

"Time stood still for me at that moment. I was in a full adrenaline response; I could see nothing but Henry and the front sight on the gun. I saw bits and pieces of furniture and glass that floated across my sight path to Henry in slow motion. I don't recall articulating anything to myself at that moment, but I was aware my options were crystal clear. Pull the trigger, maybe kill Henry and die. Or I could put down the gun and hope, maybe in vain, for another chance. It ... it was ... I ... I ... put the pistol down. Not because I wasn't willing to die ... " She heard herself say that; she heard her voice break. Suddenly all the pent up emotion boiled over, and she knew she was going to lose it. She said, "Oh God," slapped her hand over her mouth, and before anyone could react, ran out of the room leaving her stunned audience behind.

A split second later Annie heard the door slam open, glanced back and saw Jo, the best athlete in the room, coming down the hall behind her at a dead run. Annie felt Jo right behind her when she turned into the lady's room but stayed focused on making it to a commode before she heaved. Annie felt Jo pull her hair back just as she landed on her knees and became violently ill. Her eyes clamped shut; her emotions were in turmoil; her self-respect leaving with every retch. Self-recrimination filled the next moments. When the heaves and dry heaves stopped, she felt Jo pull her onto her lap and hold her while her confused brain tried to pull itself back together. When her breathing had subsided to sudden shuddering breaths, she decided she had to face the music and finally opened her eyes. She saw she was somehow sitting on Jo's lap on the floor next to the commode. She took a breath and said, "I think I can stand up. Maybe."

"Let me slide ... out from under you ... " Jo got herself erect while still holding onto Annie and helped her to her feet.

Annie avoided Jo's eyes – terrified of the condemnation she'd see in them. She felt dizzy, braced her hands on the counter to avoid even more humiliation, and said, still unable to meet Jo's gaze, "I'm a coward. If you want to walk away from me, I won't blame you. I'd walk away from myself if I could." She heard Jo gasp, felt like her despair was confirmed and continued to stare at the counter, "That was the most horrid moment in my life. All I had to do was pull the fucking trigger, and he was dead. I'm not sure what went through my mind in that moment, but I put the gun down, and I have to live with that. How can someone of valor, like Auggie, even look at me again?

Annie heard Jo take a breath, reluctantly looked up to take her punishment, and was shocked when she saw nothing but acceptance, approbation, warmth, and sincerity in Jo's eyes. Her tone of voice and expression echoed it when she said, "I've zero doubt Auggie thinks you made the right choice, Annie. I certainly do. I don't know how or why, but regardless of how you feel about it in this moment, your decision under that soul crushing pressure was the right one. The courageous one. The coward's choice would have been to pull the trigger. It would have been the ultimate cop-out. Getting it right was the tough choice. You made the right choice for the mission. That moment _was_ the mission, and you got it right. There is nobody in that room who thinks you took the coward's way out: not me, not Calder, not Auggie, not Megan, nobody."

Annie wanted to believe her, but there was still doubt when she said, "I don't know ..."

Jo interjected, "You will see it, but you need to see it in the perspective of the rest of the story. We all need to hear the rest of the story. Can you tell it?"

Feeling her sense of balance return, Annie said, "Yes. I need to clean up."

She quickly rinsed her face, gargled, washed her mouth out and then took a couple of careful swallows. Meanwhile, Jo used paper towels to clean herself and the stall. They finished about the same time. Jo said, "Well, you ready? I think Auggie held them at bay right outside the door."

"No, but I have to face them sometime." She stepped to the door, pulled it open and almost walked into Auggie who stood with his back to the door with his cane held horizontal before him. It effectively blocked the rest of the team. She said over his shoulder, "I'm sorry, that just caught me by surprise. I hadn't dealt with it. This is a tough story to tell-"

Sarah said, "That's the understatement of the new millennium."

"I think I agree. But I'll try to keep it together better for the rest of it."

Auggie turned around right where he was and said, "Annie, I'm here for you. Unconditionally. Talk to me."

"Jo helped me in ... in there. She helped me see I might have made the right choice – that I wasn't a coward. I'm working on it. I'm not over it yet, but there is at least a chance I'm going to be. That's enough for this minute."

Jo said, "Let's get back to the room. I think getting the rest of the story out will be the best thing to do at the moment. I've some experience with that. Come on Annie, you with me?"

Annie brushed Auggie's hand; he took her arm, and she looked at Jo and said, "Yes, we are." She and Auggie followed Jo down the hall back to the room while the rest of the group trailed close behind. Annie felt their presence as support.

When they all were seated Annie said, "This is important to me. Jo helped me see that choosing to live and try for a better shot might have been the right choice. I was humiliated by my choice to live and take my chances on a better shot or failure; I felt I had taken the coward's way out. However, Jo argued that it was the right choice. I haven't fully accepted that yet, but in the end, Henry's dead, and I'm alive, so it came out better than if I'd pulled the trigger. I didn't know that would happen. I gave up an almost sure thing for an uncertain chance at a surer thing. It wasn't an elaborate reasoned decision in that moment. It was an instinctive act in a moment of extreme stress. I'm not sure why I did it; I may never know. Right now I'm just trying to accept it."

Auggie said, "Annie, trust yourself. You get it right a huge percentage of the time. You are frequently the only one that sees the right answer. You did. You absolutely did the right thing. Now, tell us the rest of the story."

Annie nodded and said, "After I put the gun down, Henry and his three body guards hustled me out of the building. When we got to the street, a second assault team had showed up from someplace. They were quite different from the first one. My probably flawed mental image has these guys dressed in office weight clothes, shirts, pants, and shoes with light vests and automatic weapons. I nearly died when they opened fire on us. I don't know how they missed me, but they did. This second team was what I was expected as a rescue attempt but they were shot down almost before they got started They killed two of the guards, one right beside me, while Henry shoved me in the car, and the one remaining guard drove us away. Henry and I huddled on the floor while the guard drove. How they missed us I've no idea, but the car was clean. Glass intact. No bullet holes. I remember saying to Henry, 'You need me if we are going to get out of this alive.' His reply was, 'There is no we, only me.' I told myself he was close by and I still had a chance, but the ride was not encouraging. We ended up at an MSS safe house Henry knew about. Apparently, Oliver Lee had told him about it.

"It was obviously monitored with motion detectors. I told Henry it didn't look like much. That he was all alone. I tried to balance confidence with compliance, so they didn't handcuff me. Henry tried to adjust my expectations downward. He told me how much I'd sacrificed. How much I'd given up. That it was all going to end in failure in that room. That I'd die in that room knowing I was a failure, that I just wasn't cunning enough. He ... he ..." She held up her hand and turned away from them for a moment to gather herself, then she continued, "He told me was going to leave me to be tortured and killed in that room and asked would I like to play Mahjong?

"He put on a brave front, but his voice had changed. It gave him away. I was encouraged by the fact that he was using his own words to build himself up in his own mind. His back was against the wall. I fought back by being completely compliant. I didn't look the guard in the eye; I held on to the thought that I was still alive – my hands were free. I felt panic had set in on Henry. It might lead him to make a mistake; therefore, I still had a chance. I knew my only opportunity to succeed was to ignore what he said, but it was still there in my head.

"My brain was in hyper drive. Adrenaline fought with reason. I used the game to divert Henry and make it seem natural that my hands were free. The game isn't really standardized; there are all sorts of rule variations. I think Henry was making them up as he went along. The man was truly slimy in his need to dominate even his condemned prisoner. I let him.

They had me between them. Henry on my left, the guard on my right. There was no way I could take them on one at a time. I considered taking the guard first, but his gun was on the far side from me, so it would have been simple for him to hold me off and shoot me. I needed to control his gun to take them out. The guard was the problem. He was there to protect Henry from me and make sure I didn't escape. Protecting Henry was his first priority. I was certain I could take Henry, kill him with my bare hands in a few seconds if necessary. However, I was pretty sure I couldn't kill him before the guard shot me, so the guard had to go first. Unfortunately, the guard gave me no opening.

"My expectations took a big dip when the two Chinese MSS agents arrived. There was a guard and a senior agent who apparently planned to interrogate Henry, or me, or maybe both. The senior agent and Henry negotiated. Henry offered me in exchange for asylum. Unspoken was the fact that he'd have to be debriefed and tell all he knew to stay alive. The senior agent took my picture with his phone and left the room.

"The two guards eyed each other uneasily, but I couldn't figure out how to get them to shoot each other before the senior agent returned. I decided my best chance was to stay completely compliant, docile. Look defeated. Totally broken. I was not handcuffed and didn't want to do anything to cause them to think I'd resist. My mission and my survival depended on having my hands free.

"When the agent returned, his expression had changed. I stood up as if I were waiting for a judge to hand down a sentence. It put me on my feet, which was a tactical advantage if I caught a break. He said, with obvious pleasure, that his superiors were very pleased to have me as their prize. He gave Henry a piece of paper and told him to go to the destination written on it: they'd make a place for him. He agreed to give Henry asylum, so Henry and his guard left."

Annie closed her eyes for a few seconds, then said, "God, this is hard." She paused, forced herself to relax, and then continued, "When I watched Henry leave, destination unknown, I thought my life had been for nothing. That Henry was right: I'd failed because I'd chosen to live. It took every fiber of my self-control to hang onto my sanity in that moment. It was one second at a time. But, I told myself, I wasn't dead, yet, and this new guard was standing closer. I also felt better after I decided that, for the first time since I'd surrendered to Henry's goons, I had the advantage over my captors."

Sarah broke the long silence and said, "Advantage? My gosh, what advantage?"

"In stark terms, they had just paid a big price for what I knew, but I had to be alive for them to profit from their investment. I was cornered, willing to risk my life and kill them to escape, because if I didn't escape, death was certain. They had to risk their lives to keep me captive and alive. That was my leverage. All I needed was a break. A single moment of foolishness on their part would bring them close enough for me to take out the guard and capture the senior agent. I could then force the agent to tell me where Henry was headed. It would give me a chance to locate and kill him."

Calder said, "Wow," in a voice almost like a prayer.

She ignored the remark, took a breath, and continued, "That thought sustained me for the next few seconds. I stayed utterly compliant. I was still standing. Big wet brown eyes full of self-pity. I was asked my name. I replied in Cantonese that my name didn't matter. He said 'your Cantonese is very good.' Then he said something about finding out soon enough. I sat down and let my hands hang limp in front of me to promote the idea of compliance. Then he, the senior Chinese agent, pulled out a big ugly syringe and was going to give me a shot. He got all lost in the pleasure of telling me how he was going to use scopolamine instead of the CIA favorite sodium pentothal, or something like that. He had no new needle and nothing to sterilize the injection site because he knew it didn't matter. I had no illusion about my fate if that needle got to me, so I paid no attention to his words. I forced my body to totally relax and have dull, defeated, lowered eyes while I monitored his eyes and motions with my peripheral vision. I figured if I grabbed the syringe the guard would come over to assist him, and I could disable him, or take his gun and kill him. Even better if I could inject the old guy with the stuff and let it work while I took out the guard. I needed the senior guy alive to tell me where Henry was going.

"He was slightly off balance when he leaned forward and reached for my arm to give me the injection. I grabbed the syringe, stuck him with it, and threw him to the floor over the table with enough of a head shot that he was temporarily stunned. I turned to deal with the guard and got lucky. Sure enough, he had closed on me with his gun held straight-arm one handed out in front of him at eye level as a threat.

"In that instant I knew they were mine. We struggled; he cracked a few of my ribs and gave me some bruises, but he failed to disable me. I smashed his chest in, pounded both his kidneys, crushed his testicles, took away his gun and knocked him out with a blow to the back of his head before he could pull the trigger. As fights go, it seemed like it went on forever, but it couldn't have been more than five or ten seconds. I don't know if he survived or not; he might have had a crushed skull. I hit him as hard as I know how in the back of his head with his gun because I didn't want him to follow me, but I didn't look at him once he was down.

"I was in a full on adrenaline rage at that point with little reason to hold back. I jammed the guard's gun to the senior agent's head. He almost chuckled and said he wouldn't tell me anything, the drug wasn't working yet. I asked him if he was willing to die for Henry because that was what we were talking about. I could only see one eye and the side of his face, but when that eye blinked, I knew I'd won. I wasn't bluffing; he knew he was seconds from death. He choose to live and gave me Henry's destination: Kowloon Station and the train for Beijing. I knocked him out, took his phone, the guard's gun and left. The senior agent survived; I saw him later near the ferry terminal.

"I saw guards on the stairwell I tried to go down. They didn't see me, so I retreated to the roof and made contact with Auggie. I gave him Henry's destination and the license plate of his car. Auggie told me to ditch the phone, get a new one and text him the number. I threw the senior agent's phone off the roof, stole a phone, re-established contact with Auggie, and checked that the gun I had was loaded and had one in the chamber. It was. Auggie and Sarah caused a traffic jam that gave me a chance to catch up with Henry.

"Henry apparently left the car and his guard about the time I caught up with them on foot. With what was nothing but a stroke of much needed luck, I saw he wasn't in the car, but when I turned and looked in the direction of Kowloon Station, I saw him turn to go around a corner. I followed him carefully; he was nervous, looking around. When, after a block or so, he turned to go through some stores, I guessed that he had gone to the alley to get himself out of sight. I took a parallel path through a different store and came into the alley behind him. He heard the sound of the door when I entered the alley about twenty yards behind him. He stopped, turned around, and recognized me. I was so focused I don't remember much of the conversation. I think I said, 'Hello, Henry.' He asked, 'How did you find me?' I said, 'Does it matter?' He said, 'It always matters.' A couple of seconds later I shot him twice in the heart, walked down the alley, stepped over the body and left.

"I called Auggie and told him I did it: that Henry was dead. He told me to head for the harbor, Star Ferry, Pier 3 – we had a man on the inside there. We ended the call. Auggie called me back a few minutes later and told me the MSS had transmitted my picture to the Hong Kong Police force. The biggest police force on the planet had been told that I was armed and dangerous and instructed to search for me. My only option was get to the ferry but somehow avoid capture.

"I came around a corner, passed some policemen. One of them came after me. I ran into an alley, found some construction, picked up a piece of metal bar and ambushed him. I think I broke his leg and maybe his neck. Anyway, I left, and he didn't.

"I arrived at the ferry terminal; it had MSS and police everywhere I looked. I saw the senior agent that had been going to interrogate me talking to some of them. I called Auggie and he said, 'I'll get back to you in a sec.' I said, 'I don't know if I have a sec.' and managed to get out of the terminal undetected. A few minutes later he called me with instructions to an off shore rated power yacht. When I showed up, there was one person onboard, a weathered looking Chinese seaman. He told me in perfect English to get onboard; he would take me out to a US carrier task force in the South China Sea.

"Auggie and I had one more phone call while I was on the boat but still in the harbor. He patched me through to Joan and Arthur who introduced me to their new son Mackenzie Campbell."

Annie paused to gather her thoughts; she almost hoped someone would interrupt her, but nobody said a word. Therefore, she said, "This is a good place to take a break. I'm ready for a break and some food. Be back here in an hour." She walked to Auggie, brushed his hand as he stood up, and the two of them left the room as one.

She said, "I want to get some food, go where no one can find us and try to eat it."

# # #

**6:37 PM Day 5, Langley, Annie's Team Room:**

Annie returned to the room with Auggie and saw Calder Michaels in a conversation with Eric Barber and Sarah Tam. She had no idea what the conversation was about, but Calder nodded to her, said something to the other two and returned to his seat. After everyone was settled, she said, "It's important for our purpose here that you know in detail exactly what happened next. I can tell you my part in it, and Calder will have to tell you what happened on this end."

Annie went on to detail her phone conversations with Auggie, and her escape from China on the yacht that Sarah had hired at considerable expense. She posted a document on the screen that had the legs of the trip listed with the approximate duration of each leg and Hong Kong/DC times for her whole trip.

Time: HK/DC

**Day 0: **Left Henry in Alley 3pm/2 am

Hour walk to Ferry terminal. Abort. 4pm/3am

Two hour wait eluding police while somebody found the yacht. 6pm/5am

Thirty minutes to make it to the yacht. 6;30 PM/5:30AM

Yacht to go 100 nautical miles (nm) off shore: 5 hours at an average of 20 kts 11:30PM/10:30AM

**Day 1:** Seals pickup, transfer to Arleigh-Burk missile destroyer: 1 hour 30 minutes. 1am/12pm

Destroyer to Carrier with transfer time, another hour. 2am/1pm

Lay over on the carrier waiting for the Logistics aircraft's scheduled departure: ~6 hours. 8am/7pm

Flight to Kadena air base on Okinawa: 800 nm 251 knots in the C2A: ~3 hrs. 11am/10pm

Time between landing and attack: ~20 minutes. **Total time until attack, ~20 hours.**

Additional lay over at Kadena due to attack: ~4 hours. 3pm/1am

**Day 2:** Flight to Kaneohe Bay from Kadena in CIA Jet: 4,050 nm 400 knots: ~10 hours 1am/noon

Lay over + crew change at Kaneohe Bay: ~2 hours 3am/2pm

Flight to LAX from Kaneohe Bay: 2,560 nm 400 knots: ~7 hours 10am/9pm

2 hour layover LAX + 2,560 nm 400 kts: ~7 hours flying time. 7pm/6am

One hour to conference room at Langley. 8pm/7am

Total time of 53 hours from the alley to the conference room.

She emphasized that it was only about twenty hours between when she left the alley and when she was attacked in the plane.

She set up the moment of the attack and watched her small audience carefully for their reaction to the news. She was relieved when she saw Jo, Megan, Eric and Sarah all react with intense curiosity, pretty much as she would have expected from innocent people, to the description of the attack. Auggie and Calder already knew about it, so they didn't have the same reaction. That all fit.

She scanned back and forth across her audience and then said, "You were surprised. So was I. That attack told me Henry wasn't operating alone. There is no way he could have set it up. He was out of contact with whatever was left of his company from the time we entered the Chinese MSS safe house until he died ... until I killed him ... in that alley. He could have communicated in the brief time between leaving the room and being shot. But, he had no knowledge of his imminent demise and had last seen me as a prisoner being tortured. Nobody on the planet, including me, could have known I'd be in Kadena until at least two hours after Henry was dead. I didn't know I was going to Kadena until the Seals picked me up more than six hours later and a hundred-twenty miles off shore. In addition to that, he expected to spend the rest of his life in Chinese custody paid for by his de-briefing, so why would he have communicated?

"There it is. You can see the approximate times and durations from the time I killed Henry until I landed at Andrews. The most important part is the time between Henry's death and the attack – approximately twenty hours. I realize that's most of a day, but it's still an awfully short time to get that hit implemented.

"Anyway, that's the period of time in which the person or persons we are after managed to place an assassin, or hijacker, in the cockpit of that plane. To me, that is a very scary accomplishment for a private enterprise. The Agency could do it, no problem. For a private entity, that's almost unbelievable; except I shot the guy and he was a real person. The resource they used had to be in place at Kadena. Maybe not an employee, but on a list of resources and cleared to be on base because it was midday. Maybe a CIA deep cover resource that died thinking he was doing a patriotic mission? We need to find out what we can about that hijacker because he's one of our leads.

"So, our objective is to find who that is, locate what is left of Henry's organization that's still functional and put it out of business. You in?"

Silence. The silence extended for several seconds, and Annie had started to accept that maybe they weren't going to help when she heard a collective exhale followed by Calder saying, "My God, Walker! I ... just ... my God, that's an incredible story. I had no idea what you'd been through between the time you got out of the car and we heard from you on that yacht."

The silence continued for almost another twenty seconds before she said, "Do ... do ... I need to do this myself?" in a weak voice.

Jo stood up and said, "Hell no. I'm in," while she walked up to stand next to Annie.

Eric Barber rose at almost the same time and said, "Damn right! I'm in."

"You already know I'm in." Auggie said.

That was followed by a chorus of agreement. Annie let out a breath of visible relief and said, "Thanks guys. I am usually ready to go and just do it and maybe allow someone to help, but this is more than I can take on. I really need your help."

Calder got up, faced the room, and then said, "I speak for myself, the DCI, DNI, the FBI Director, Joan and Arthur Campbell when I say, Annie, all the resources we can bring to bear on this are yours, ours, this team's, to use. You need anything, if it's physically possible, we'll make it happen. You wanted Jo and Megan from Philly. They are here. You wanted Sarah on Auggie's recommendation. She's here. You needed an operations room; here it is with its own mole proof server system firewalled off from the rest of the agency like only Eric and Sarah could do it. You have a biometric combination lock on the door and the room is alarmed to the security center. If anyone tries to break in it will bring an armed response in seconds. That good enough to get us started?"

"That's ..." she took a big breath and exhaled before she continued, "That's wonderful. I'm in your debt forever."

"I'm not going to argue with you, but you're just plain _wrong_ about the direction of the debt. Now let's get to work. Where do you want to start?"

"Calder, at the risk of breaking the momentum, I'm exhausted to the point of feeling dizzy. My brain has turned to oatmeal mush. I'd really like to call a halt to this and re-start in the morning."

Calder, not one to let go of an idea, persisted, "Some of these people are night owls and might want to see if they can give us a leg up on the data searches."

"Calder, before we start, I would really like, correction, I really need, a blow-by-blow of what happened on this end. Who you were in meetings with; who knew the plan to get me out. What oversight was informed and when? Can you tell us that first thing in the morning? Right now I don't think I could retain any of it."

"I can tell you right now."

"No. Calder, no. We've ... I've ... had enough for today. We need to let this stew in our heads. We are after a cagy foe on their home turf. We have no home court advantage. In fact, we have a home court disadvantage. Now is the time to pick our shots. I want to hear your debrief with a clear head, and I most certainly do not have that right now. Auggie?"

"Right there with ya."

Sarah said, "Annie, do you mind if Eric and I tweak this server set up a bit? It looks to me like you are going to have us probe outside databases, and with the CIA firewalls, we need to do some adjustments to have them go as fast as we'd like."

Eric Barber said, "She's right, we can change this setup and make a huge performance improvement."

Annie looked at Calder and said, "I'm good with that if you are."

Calder nodded and said, "Go for it, guys. See you in the morning. Seven good for everybody?"

There was a chorus of "Yeses'," and he was out the door striding with purpose down the hall.

Annie said, "Jo, Megan, I'm sorry but you are on your own. I'm exhausted." After which she lead Auggie out of the room in the direction of the cafeteria. Annie glanced at the clock on the wall as they left; it said 10:05 PM. It would be a short night.

* * *

**EN:** Well, there it is. Let me know what you think. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

01/28/2014


	9. The Investigation

Hi-jacked / FRW

9

**AN:** Once again I owe thanks to my three mentors.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

**Chapter 9**

**The Investigation**

**7:00 AM Day 6, Langley, Annie's Team Office:**

Annie, perched casually on the edge of her desk. She looked and felt much better after the best night's sleep she'd had in months. She felt her body had almost adjusted to the thirteen-hour difference between Hong Kong and east coast time. She had on jeans, the walking shoes from yesterday, and a polo shirt. The bruises on her arms were still visible but had faded noticeably except for the one that had turned a little green. She decided it was good they couldn't see the rest of her. The in-house doctor had spent some time last evening re-taping her ribs for the third time and had given her a bottle of prescription Tylenol that worked well to control the pain. She was really glad she didn't have a headache or concussion, that would have been miserable.

She'd gotten there a little early and found Jo, Megan, Sara, and Eric chatting pleasantly over some coffee. She heard enough when she entered to know it was small talk about the area outside of Langley. Apparently Megan and Jo had gone to Allen's, had a burger and then to their rooms. Megan to catch-up with her home office on her laptop. Jo to touch base with Rob on face-time. (I checked on line. This should be Face Time.)

With that all behind them, she faced the small group energized and ready to go. Auggie and Calder had arrived last. Annie would learn later that Auggie had stopped by the DPD tech center to check in. Calder joined him there as he left, and they arrived together. She said, "Okay, we're all caffeinated and sugared; it's time to get started. Calder, are you ready to tell us what happened on this side of the ocean while I was yachting in the South China Sea?"

Calder stood, looked at the room, and said, "Yes. Yes I am. And by the way, don't take this the wrong way, but if you ever invite me to go yachting with you, I'm going to run screaming in the opposite direction."

"I wouldn't blame you. If you come up here, I'll just take your seat."

Calder stood, turned to Barber and said, "Sure. Eric, please put up that meeting list. I think my contacts and what I told them will be key to figuring out the information flow.

"After our flight arrived at Andrews, I turned Oliver Lee over to the de-briefing team. Then I attended a meeting with the DCS Eric Braithwaite, Alex Boulware from the General Counsel's office, and Suzanne Williams, a lady from the State Department I'd not seen before. I invited Joan. She arrived a minute or two after I did. There were some other low-level people there that I hadn't seen before, but they seemed right at home in the room. During that meeting, I announced that Auggie and I had turned Oliver Lee and brought him back from Hong Kong for debriefing. I mentioned that he was a fountain of information on Henry. Braithwaite looked nervous, but that could have been for any number of reasons. Alex had chided him for giving Henry a Green Badge, and I thought that might be what was making him nervous. I presented a few pages of damming but utterly conclusive evidence of Henry's recent treason. Braithwaite was clearly very nervous but said nothing directly incriminating or out of character for a bureaucrat who had made a mistake and had no idea how to cover his ass.

"I've done some checking, and the General Counsel's office, through Alex, was tasked with keeping the Senate Intelligence committee apprised of developments at the request of the DCI. I learned that he briefed a sub group of the Senate Intelligence Committee every few hours after the discovery of Henry's body. I've requested the attendance list for those meetings as well as minutes. Since Alex was there, he should have a copy of the minutes and at least be able to recite the short list of attendees. If he holds back at all, I'll see if I can get the DCI to lean on him.

"I got a call from Auggie about an attack on the Lexington Global office where Annie was around 5:00 a.m. DC time, 6:00 p.m. Hong Kong time. We simultaneously concluded that Braithwaite must have been behind the attack. He was the only one in the meeting that could have made that happen on his own.

"I called Joan. She dropped what she was doing and came in. We went together to see Braithwaite and discovered, along with his secretary, that he'd hung himself in his office. For me that confirmed his involvement in at least the attack on the Lexington Global office. A burner phone was found in a small safe in his desk drawer when his office was searched by internal security. I learned last night that it showed a call to a burner phone in Hong Kong that was located where Henry would have been just before he was to meet with Oliver Lee. It was a meeting that Annie, Auggie and myself had Lee set up so we could capture Henry. Henry evaded capture, probably because he was alerted to Auggie's and my presence in Hong Kong by that call from Braithwaite. He could not have been told of Annie's presence because Braithwaite didn't know Annie was alive.

"That was confirmed when I checked with the Covert Ops tech group and found out Braithwaite had the transponder records tracked for the plane Annie and Auggie took with me to Hong Kong. He couldn't have known Annie was on the plane, but he would have been able to find out Auggie and I were.

"Once the word was out in the media that Henry's body had been found and identified, I reconvened the meeting with Alex from the General Counsel's office and the woman from State. They had only learned of Annie's participation just before that meeting. They made me acting DCS and put me in charge of getting Annie home. I said someone from State needed to big foot the Navy to get Annie a water egress. Suzanne Williams, the woman from State, said she'd call Admiral Ladano, and she did right there in the meeting.

"With Ladano, a former Special Operations guy, on the phone, Joan, Alex Boulware from the General Counsel's office, and myself laid out the plan. Using Colonel Abbott was Joan's idea. She knew he was former Special Operations, so did Ladano. In fact, Abbott and Ladano knew each other. Ladano picked Chief Peters from Seal Team 3 because he knew Abbott and was part of the Seal team assigned to the carrier group. And that is where the Seal team came from. I didn't want Alex in the meeting, but the DCI insisted that Alex keep the Senate Intelligence Committee up to date on the details, so I was over ruled.

"Ladano's involvement ended once the Seals were assigned and the Carrier Operations Group in the South China Sea was given the mission as a top priority. From that point on, it was up to Peters to get Annie from the yacht to Kadena with the full support of the admiral on the carrier. After that, it was supposed to be just Annie and Colonel Abbott. The Air Force was to supply the pilots; the CIA provided the plane. It was one that just happened to be available in Hawaii so I diverted it to Kadena.

"At no time did I mention the attack on Annie at Kadena. That was a total surprise to the DNI, DCI, and FBI Director when she told them about it immediately after she walked into the meeting room with them about an hour after she landed at Andrews."

Annie added, "I'm convinced, based on their reaction to that announcement, they had no clue."

Calder thought a moment and said, "Unless I come up with something else, that's what I did to get Annie back to us. I did review the transcripts of Oliver Lee's debriefing up to that point, but I didn't share that with anybody. Very little of what he's told us has anything to do with Henry; though it provided solid evidence that tied Henry directly to Deric Hughes and the attack in Copenhagen. That said, Oliver's the biggest leak the MSS has ever had. Annie not only shut down Henry; while she was at it, she called an audible, turned and brought in the biggest leak in Chinese Ministry of State Security history."

Annie said, "Let's take a break, get some coffee, and we'll reconvene in fifteen minutes."

Barber said, "Do you want us to get our own office pot?"

Annie said, "Thanks, but no. This is a pretty intense mission. We need to force ourselves to take breaks. Going for coffee works as well as anything. It forces a break because we shouldn't talk about this outside of this room."

Calder said, "Yeah, good idea. Auggie, I need some time with you."

Auggie said, "Lead on."

The group, including Calder and Auggie, filed out. Annie looked up and saw Sarah walking in her direction instead of out the door. Sarah responded to her look and said, "I would consider it a huge honor to shake your hand." Annie took the offered handshake, and then Sarah looked right at Annie and went on, "I'd never heard of you, or Auggie, by name before he showed up in our tech center. It was an amazing experience to work with him. He was so focused, so efficient, so creative, and so incredibly gifted. I could only hear his end of your conversations, but there were no explanations, no back-story in the conversation: it was as if the two of you were different halves of the same brain. Now I find you are both brilliant out-of-the-box operatives. He had me drive to the middle of the busiest intersection in Kowloon and just park the car. We got out, and he suggested we get a taxi. Traffic was instantly completely clogged. So simple. So effective. You taught me how to look for 'advantage' where most would think none exists. Thank you for the opportunity to learn from you."

Annie wasn't sure what to say, but mindful of the counsel from Colonel Abbott, the Commander, and Chief Peters, she finally managed to say, "Thank you. I am extremely fortunate to have Auggie as a partner."

Sarah said, "You do coffee, right? Shall we?"

Annie, relieved the personal moment was over, laughed and said, "We shall!" and led Sarah out of the door toward the Starbucks.

# # #

**9:00 AM Day 6, Langley, Annie's Team Room:**

Annie faced the team as they settled. They looked refreshed by the walk and their beverage of choice. "I don't have any indispensible ego attached to what I'm going to say next, so just let me get it out, then tear into it. Let's make it the best approach we can jointly figure out. Okay?"

She saw nods all around followed by Auggie's comment, "I'm going to assume you are all nodding?" which got a chuckle.

She thought for a few seconds, and then continued, "We have three avenues to investigate. One, and probably the one with the most promise, is to track the information flow from Calder's meetings and see if it leads to my attacker. Another is to follow the money trail we uncovered. The third is to work backwards from the hijacker I killed at Kadena.

"I think we need more back-story to focus on than just follow the money. So I'd like to offer a hypothesis that might lead to both the hijacker and any other terrorist enterprises linked to Lexington Global."

The room was silent, but she saw nods, so she continued, "Okay, I'll start with the basis for my hypothesis: The DHS sponsors a program called the EB-5 Investment and Visa Program. It is supposed to attract legitimate foreign investors seeking legal residency and a chance to invest in the American economy. Investors can be eligible by pledging a minimum of $500,000 to a project within a Targeted Employment Area, a.k.a. 'TEA,' through an approved regional center. They may also independently apply for an EB-5 Visa.

"If approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), foreign investors are granted a conditional two-year green card. After two years, the investor must provide proof that they have created at least ten jobs as a result of their investment and have met additional investment requirements set by USCIS. If they do, the green card is renewed.

"One final bit of background: The EB-5 Visa program is administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and because it's a Federal government program, it falls outside any state laws and gets no oversight from state agencies.

"With that as background, we know that Henry had information and assets that allowed him to intercept CIA money shipments. I don't know if that started after his sentence was commuted, or if it began before he was imprisoned. In any event, sometimes the loss was noticed, but it was apparently infrequently. In fact we have direct evidence that a shipment of two hundred million dollars was diverted from its intended destination, and no alarm was raised. One of the things to find out is why not? How was it possible to steal that huge sum of money from this agency with no accountability? How could nobody have missed it?

"I am also hypothesizing that Lexington Global was investing for its future. Up until I took out Deric Hughes, a.k.a. Andrew Goodman, in Geneva, Henry thought he had a long-term project going. In fact, he could have thought that was the case until he killed Helen. I think he made plans to leave the country immediately after he killed her, but I've no idea why. He had thought his scheme was going to allow him to make a lot of money and get long-term revenge on the agency that removed him from the best job he ever had, DCS of the CIA. I heard him tell Sana that he planned to have Lexington Global largely supplant the CIA in the nation's intelligence apparatus. I'm certain he actually believed that. I think that has been his plan for several years. His plan went off the tracks and turned into an act of revenge when his son, Jai, was blown up with a car bomb.

"We tracked down the person that planted the bomb almost two years ago. He committed suicide right in front of the team that was trying to take him into custody. We think he killed Jai to get even with Henry because Henry abandoned him in the field and left him to be captured, tortured, and rot in a foreign prison. When he managed to get free, I'm ninety-nine percent certain he killed Jai as an act of revenge. Arthur proved that to Henry beyond any reasonable doubt, but Henry's rage was irrational, and he began a bloody vendetta against Arthur, Joan, the CIA, and Arthur's family. His vendetta was extended to anybody who wouldn't aid him in his cause, and that included me.

"One other important data point is that we know for certain Henry financed foreign terrorist acts and used them to incriminate Teo Braga and Arthur. I think it isn't much of a leap to suspect he planned to finance terrorist acts here at home in order to discredit both the CIA and the DHS. If he succeeded, Lexington Global was almost assured of a big, lucrative role in the country's intelligence apparatus with Henry privy to everything that was going on. I think, based on his statement to Sana, that was his ultimate goal and the path he planned to take. He was killing intermediaries to cover his tracks. Nelson Smith turned on Henry because of that.

" I believe we must study money shipments diverted prior to the two hundred million to find links to any terrorist cells Henry financed. At least some of those will have had time to flow back into the system.

"The bottom line is that we have four leads: whatever information we can get from Oliver Lee, the body of the hijacker in Kadena, information flow through Legal to the Senate Intelligence Committee, and diverted CIA money shipments. We need to nail those down so we can go back up the chain to Henry's co-conspirator.

"Okay. Your thoughts?"

There was a long silence, and finally Sarah raised her hand and said, "I think that's a good set of options. I like the EB-5 hypothesis. I also think there is independent evidence to support it. I know of some links to domestic technology investments from the Chinese mainland that were recently, in the last year anyway, okayed for Silicon Valley and some that were supposedly set up here in the DC area. But while those existed on paper, there was no obvious physical entity to connect them to."

Calder asked, "Were we notified in the DPD?"

"You should have been." She looked over at Megan and Jo and added, "So should the FBI. The whole thing was reported to headquarters. At least it was supposed to be. I provided all the data we had to the officer who was assigned to write the report and forgot about it until now. I never saw the report, and the officer, Bill Mahershon, transferred out of station shortly after that. We heard it was because he didn't speak Chinese well enough. Truthfully, he didn't speak it at all. I'm sure it was 'case closed' as soon as he was gone – at least as far as my station's leadership was concerned.

Annie said, "Who was the officer? Bill Mahershon?"

Sara's eyes sparkled a little when she said, "Want a picture of him?" Annie just cracked a smile, so Sarah turned, and with fingers so fast they sounded like a crash rather than key strokes, had the biography of the officer on screen in seconds. Sarah grinned and said, "I love your network response!"

Annie said, "That's Deric Hughes under another name. Sarah, please see if you can run down that report but do it quietly. I don't want to attract attention to this probe because I can't avoid the thought that whoever is left could cause things to disappear."

Annie knew it was time for her team to stop listening and get to work. "To begin," she said, "we need to look in places we can look without a warrant. Our objective will be to build a case for, and define the subject matter of, the warrants we will need. I want to be very careful not to screw up the evidentiary chain. Jo, Megan, please be right on top of us. Stop us if we are going over the line anywhere that might compromise admissibility of evidence. I think whoever we are after isn't going to be taken down in a fight. He or she will have been living in a position of privilege and power for at least the last several years, if not decades. That's not a hand's on person, at least not in the sense of wet work."

Megan said, "We got that. You are on good ground so far. You want me to have Rossabi or someone from my office follow-up on the shooter in Okinawa?"

"Your office. Cleary or someone else as good?"

"It'd be Cleary."

Annie smiled, remembering the face that went with the name, and said, "Go for it."

Then she turned to Barber and said, "Eric, you get what you can from the CIA; Megan, can you work through treasury to get the matching data from them?"

"Yeah, but I'll need to work through my Philly office. It might take a little longer. When I call Bill we'll add this to his list of urgent actions. We have an agent who's been working counterfeiting problems on the East Coast. I bet he has access to the data we need right on his computer. It's time for me to review his progress. My cell doesn't work in here; can I use one of these phones?"

Annie said, "Eric, show her how to make an outside call," then turned to Jo and said, "What do you think looks interesting?"

"I may have an alternate way to get access to the attendance records for the Senate Intelligence Committee. They should be public information. I'd be astonished if they weren't alerted to money movements. One of the major things they, Congress, do is watch the money. It's probably the only part of this business they even begin to understand. I thought I'd look into that. But, I'll have to leave here and go have lunch with a former classmate from law school. She's on Senator Pearson's staff."

"Sounds good to me. If you can get her to give you access to their attendance data, it would be huge."

Auggie said, "If I give you a special plug-in, would you be willing to plug it into a USB port on her laptop?"

"Sure, but that would require a warrant. If she volunteers it, we're good."

"If she doesn't volunteer it and they still stonewall after we get a warrant, I can give you the plug in. It's legal then, right?"

"Yes, but I think she has an Apple laptop."

"I'll give you two of them. One for PC, one for fruit."

"Cool. What do I do with it?"

"Just plug it in. Leave it plugged in until the LED goes green and then pull it out. After that, it will dump the drive to the untraceable spoofed Wi-Fi hot spot I'll give you to go to in your purse or a pocket. You just have to keep it within about fifteen feet of the laptop. The hot spot will do the rest. It might need a few minutes to dump all the data, but it won't leave any trace of having been there, and when it's done, it will clean up after itself."

"Her machine may be password protected."

"Won't matter. If it's a senate staff machine, NSA limits what they can do, so they won't be hack proof to the NSA, which means they aren't hack proof to us either."

"You're scary."

"Not as scary as Henry's accomplice."

"True."

"Annie, I'm going to take Jo with me to the DPD Tech Ops center and get her the stuff she needs."

Jo said, "Not yet, Auggie. Let's wait until we need it. Your gizmo and it's code will have dates. They need to be after the date and time of the warrant. We need to avoid any appearance of impropriety."

Annie's thoughts had drifted away from the conversation when it got to geek stuff. She came back to the present and said, "Jo's right. I want whoever it is to take a perp-walk on the evening news and rot in Federal Prison, reputation in tatters, convicted of treason in a highly publicized trial."

# # #

**3:00 PM Day 6, Langley, Annie's Office and Team Room:**

Their first break in the investigation came with almost unbelievable speed.

Jo's meeting had yielded a verbal reference, with a wink, to a link on a public website where committee attendance was available for the asking. Obscure, definitely. Restricted, not if you could find it. As far as Jo was concerned, that was as good as DNA left in a trashcan. Public property. She had down loaded the whole attendance database as soon as she got back to the room.

Sarah had managed to recover her original data files that she had copied to Hughes to write his report. He never wrote it. But the data pointed to four companies that were owned by a Roger Pearson who just happened to be the brother-in-law of Senator Pearson.

Jo looked at that and said, "Ding!"

Sarah said, "Those investment entities are all sub-divisions of Middle Eastern companies every one of which is headquartered in Saudi Arabia. I need to get my head into this farther. Why would they need to bring anything here to develop? They aren't into technical innovation even in oil drilling."

Annie turned to Calder, who had dropped in just a few minutes previously, and asked, "Would you be willing to contact the station chief in Saudi Arabia and find out if they know anything without causing alarm bells to go off?"

He said, "Yes, I can. E-mail the data to me. Anything else before I go do that?"

"Not right now."

Annie turned to Megan and asked, "Any luck?"

"Yup. Agent Cleary had the data in hand that we need." It looked to Annie like she was fighting not to smile when she said, "He suggested we go over his progress on that case, as long as we were in contact, which we did. It included the data we need on money transfers. So I have it in hand, in plain sight so to speak. We're good. I just got it transferred to my account in Philly. With some help from Barber, we ought to be able to get it inside the CIA so we can cross compare it with other things."

Barber said, "Great. I'm at a point that I could use it. Annie, I'll get it done."

Annie could see Jo was excited. Annie could tell by the way she clicked the keyboard. She asked, "Whatcha got, Jo?"

"You mentioned Senator Pearson; I took a look at attendance, and hers is sporadic at best. I can hardly wait to see if it corresponds with money shipments."

Barber, whose fingers worked with lightening speed as he spoke, said, "Give me about ten minutes, and we'll know. I'm almost there."

Annie said, "I'll be right back. I need to visit the room just down the hall." She pulled a small bottle of Advil out of her desk drawer, dumped three pills into her hand, returned the bottle, picked up a glass, and went out the door.

# # #

**3:33 PM Day 6. Langley, Annie's Office and Team Room:**

Annie returned to find Sarah, Jo, and Barber all collected around Barber's screen. She asked, "Eric, can you put it on the big screen?"

"Oh, yeah."

Jo and Sarah turned to look at the big screen, and Jo said, "Barber had the shipment data; I had Pearson's attendance data. Sarah ran a correlation analysis, and just as you came back, we determined there was less than a 1% chance the correlation between Pearson's attendance and the shipments was a coincidence. She attended more than the shipment meetings, but she attended all the shipment meetings for the last year since she's been on the committee."

Annie got it quicker than the others and said, "I think we've got her."

Megan said, "Maybe, but I think we need more."

Annie said, "I don't think so."

Jo suddenly got it too, turned to Annie and said, "I get it, I think. There are two useful pieces of data there. It requires both to get the most out of either. First, she's only been there for a year which corresponds with the time when Henry met with you at the table where you and Jai sat just before he was killed. Second, she hasn't missed a shipment meeting in that time frame. Why hasn't she missed a shipment meeting? How did she know the agenda ahead of time? Not really clever on her part, but also a clue to three things: First, she was put on that committee because Henry used his influence on her behalf. Second, that she was in Henry's pocket before he did that because he wouldn't have done it unless she was a sure thing. Third, she knew in advance which meetings would related to missing money shipments because Henry told her. Annie, she's at least one candidate."

Annie said, "Bingoooooo!"

Megan studied the screen for several seconds before she said, "I think we've found the parking ticket. I'm pretty sure I can use this to get us a warrant for everything in her life including dental x-rays." She quickly added, "Figure of speech, Barber, we aren't really going to get dental records. However, to be sure, we should exercise due diligence and go after all the information on those four companies that's available in open public forums as well."

Megan said, "I'll go looking for information in the market."

Barber said, "I'll go look for them on tech forums. If they are legit, they should show up some place."

Jo said, "I'll go comb through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services EB-5 records on those companies and see what I can come up with. They should have at least the names of people who have applied for conditional Green Cards and their current status."

# # #

**4:08 PM Day 6, Langley, Annie's Office and Team room:**

Jo was the first to hit pay dirt, "Guys, I have one Green Card name for each of those companies. All of them were renewed three months ago, and I can't find any trace of them on the web since then. They are off the grid. Nevertheless, I do have their data including pictures. Barber, do you have any way of looking for these people, or should I try going through the FBI database?"

Megan called Rossabi and asked him if he'd be willing to get them a FISA warrant to ask for the NSA records related to all committee and committee member and supporting staff phone calls, texts, and e-mails. He was reluctant. Megan put Annie on the phone. Annie told him, "You remember when I said you'd need to trust me right when it looks like a bad idea? This is one of those times. But, if you come out here, I'll get you in the civilian entrance into a conference room and show you what we have. We can work together on the basis for the warrant.

He agreed.

# # #

**8:30 AM Day 7, Langley, Annie's Office and Team Room:**

Annie was at her desk when the phone rang. It was Rossabi. He said, "I've almost struck out here. We have a high profile object for this warrant, and the Judge wants to be sure it's pristinely pure and all justified. He is leaning in our direction, but he said, and I quote, '_Do you have someone that's really familiar with this data who can come here and back your pitch?'_ I told him I did. That would be you and either Megan or Jo.

Annie said, "How much time do we have? I need to change clothes and alert Chief Peter's team to pick me up."

" He said he'll be writing opinions all day. We can show up any time if we don't take too long."

"We'll be there in an hour or a bit more."

Annie hung up, turned to Megan, and said, "Rossabi needs us to support his warrant request. He said the Judge is leaning in our direction but wants everything to be perfect given the high profile nature of the object of the warrant."

Megan said, "I'm good."

Annie said, "Let me see if I can get our escort onboard," and dialed the number she had for the Chief. When he answered, she asked, "Chief, where are you?"

"About ten minutes away from you. What's up?"

"I'm going to a Federal Judge's chamber to argue a warrant. You have the SUV, Right?"

"Yes. It's full of gas, and I have the pass that will let me drive it into the parking lot and right up to the building to pick you up."

"We're going to meet with a Federal judge. Suit and tie. Bring hand guns; you can wait in the lobby outside the checkpoint. Bring your clothing receipts as well, and I'll get you reimbursed."

"I'll bring a spare gun for you. Nineteen okay? I'll be driving. You don't need a holster. I'll give it to you if we are attacked."

"Perfect."

"I'll go change."

"Agent Burk and I will meet you and Chief Maxwell outside the lobby in thirty minutes?"

Peter's said, "Go," and ended the call.

* * *

EN: It isn't as exciting as some chapters, but to catch the bad guys, you need evidence. It's also important to note that not all leads pan out. What did you think?

01/28/2014


	10. Senators Are Fair Game

Hi-jacked / FRW

**Chapter 10**

**Senators are Fair Game**

**9:40 AM, Day 7, Judge Marks' Chambers:**

When the three of them were admitted to the Judge's chambers, Rossabi said, "Your Honor. Thank you for giving me the time to bring in Agents Burk and Tarantino."

Annie used her first seconds of eyes on the judge to assess this new contact in her life. _Sixty maybe? Hair going to grey. Cut short to deal with receding hairline. Takes care of himself if his posture and face are any indication- Oh crap! He recognized me. How does he know me. I'm certain I've never seen him before._

She was already nervous, and it only got worse when he looked at her and said, "Anti-Terrorist Expert, FBI Special Agent Betty Lou Tarantino?"

Annie said, "Yes," with some trepidation.

The judge looked at the other two then back at Annie and said, "You used to be blonde, but it's definitely you. I presume Agents Burk and Rossabi are read in since they were named in the order I signed that legally justified your NOC as an FBI agent before you took down the cell in Philadelphia."

Annie was immensely relieved to learn that the judge knew about her through that court order and said, "Yes, your Honor. They know everything."

He said, "Do you mind if I call you Ms. Walker. It eliminates you lying to a Federal Judge."

"Please do, your Honor."

"Now that I know you are involved, this is making more sense. I'm not sure how much of the story behind this the CIA has shared with the FBI."

"All of it, your Honor. I spent five hours yesterday taking them through everything we know, everything we think, and everything we guess. We've held nothing back from the FBI, though Agent Rossabi was not privy to that briefing. Agent Burk and Agent Bell were."

He looked at Megan and said, "Agent Burk?"

"If there is anything she didn't tell us, it's only because it got lost in the incredible river of detail she related. If you had heard it, you would be certain she held nothing back."

The Judge looked satisfied and said, "Truthfully, based on her reputation, I'd expect nothing less." He turned to Annie and said, "Please don't hold back. I'm cleared for anything you know and a lot more. If you want this warrant, and I assume it's for you since Agent Rossabi only knows he wants it, but doesn't quite understand why it should be issued, I need enough supporting justification to make it a no-brainer to go after the Senate Intelligence Committee. That's a high bar."

"Your Honor, this warrant will enable the CIA Domestic Protection Division and the FBI to work together out of Langley, with the FBI as the lead agency, to find Henry Wilcox's hidden partner. However, it's not a five-minute story. Do you have time now?"

He smiled at her and said, "For the woman who left that traitor Henry Wilcox dead in a Hong Kong alley, I have all week. But, in the interest of efficiency, give me the elevator pitch, what evidence do you have that he has a partner?"

"I shot Henry in the alley in Hong Kong at about 3:00 p.m. Hong Kong time. A hired assassin attacked me twenty hours later when I boarded the CIA chartered plane on the Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa. It was impossible for Henry to have arranged that for obvious reasons. Because I am a target, the FBI agreed to run the investigation out of the CIA Domestic Protection Division. I'm the CIA lead; Agent Burk is the FBI lead. Agent Rossabi is our liaison to DC officialdom and the legal system. The object of the investigation is to identify and neutralize the co-conspirators and find any hitmen that have an open contract on me. Agents Burk and Bell are badged for unescorted entry into the CIA Domestic Protection Division to make that possible. "

"How did you get here?"

"Armored SUV wearing a full combat vest, that's still in the lobby, accompanied by a team of three Seals for protection."

"Wow. Had I known that, I'd have come to you." He paused for a second then said, "Moving on, that was a great elevator pitch. Please define neutralize."

This may come as a surprise based on what you know of my history, but we – I – would very much like to perp-walk Henry's surviving co-conspirators right into Federal Court. I'd like to sit in court and watch a trial that reveals their evil deeds in detail, a trial that humiliates them to tears. Then let them live out their lives in the Administrative Detention Facility at the Federal Prison in Florence, Colorado with no hope of parole. I also have a personal vested interest in taking the conspirators alive: I want to know who they have under contract to kill me."

"You're right; it is a bit of a surprise, but given how you handled Khalid Ansari, not that much of a surprise. The contract part also makes sense."

"Your honor, with all due respect, how do you know so much about me? I'm supposedly a quote Covert unquote CIA officer. The operative word is 'Covert.' I feel like I've been on the front page, or cocktail gossip, or worse."

"You are on the front page of every newspaper in the country; you just aren't named. Everybody knows somebody shot Henry. They just don't know who."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

He nodded at her, turned his head slightly to face them and said, "Agents Rossabi and Burk, would you give us a few minutes alone? The rest of this conversation will be above your clearance level."

Rossabi was taken aback but said, "Uh ... yes. Yes, of course, Your Honor. We'll be right outside."

"You might want to go to the Cafeteria. We'll probably be an hour or so."

While Burk stood to leave she said, "Yes, Your Honor." She laid her card on his desk and said, "If you need to contact me. I presume you have Agent Rossabi's number?"

"I do."

The door closed and the judge gave them a few minutes to walk away. "Miss Walker," he said, "it might interest you to know that in some elite circles you have a reputation as one of the eight to ten most deadly people on the planet – male or female." She started to rise out of her chair, but he said, "Please don't be upset. People, even in the inner circle, don't know your name. Word is out that the CIA has an elite female super spy. But, that's the end of what they know. Very, very few people know who it is; and if they do they aren't talking."

"That's not helping. If my ID gets on the front page, my career is over and I have hours, at the most days, to live. Witness Protection wouldn't work for more than a few days."

"I know. I'll tell you how I was able to connect the dots. Maybe that will help." When Annie nodded he said, "Early in my career I was an attorney with the Judge Advocate General's office, JAG, in what eventually became the Special Operations Command. I met Frank there. I've been to his range. I've shot there but only as a friend, never as a student. I saw the cottage you stay in when you are there. When I asked if I could stay there, he said it was reserved for his only female student and that she kept a lot of her stuff there, so it was locked and alarmed. Frank did not tell me your name, but given everything else I know, including a colonel that was in the restaurant in Carlisle, it was easy to connect the dots."

Apparently, he could see she was upset because he added, "I see a lot of classified data. I probably see more secrets than those actually in the various intelligence agencies because all the agencies come to me for warrants. I don't disclose what I know to anybody. I consider myself bound by the laws governing classified data. This communication is privileged so are my communications with other agencies. There are no recording devices in this room. As far as I'm concerned, if it isn't written, it never happened. I know who you are because I can see bits and pieces from across the intelligence spectrum that aren't available to anybody else. I'd appreciate it if you never share that story, but I told you so you'd know your Covert ID isn't blown."

"Thank you. Yes, I'm Frank's only female student, and I stay in that cottage. I wouldn't need to. I always train alone, but Frank knows I'm a covert officer, so he set it up for me, and I really appreciate it."

"Okay, now that we have that sorted out. I know you're not a lawyer, but give me the background in simple English. I'm particularly interested in the data or observations you have that support the warrant."

Annie thought for a few seconds and decided to tell him the truth. As a result she gave him an executive summary tour of the last year-and-a-half. It started with Henry in the restaurant where she saw Jai's car blow up, and it ended when she walked back into Langley five days earlier. The story of the hijacked CIA money that paid Goodman to shoot down the helicopter in Copenhagen gripped the judge's attention. His only reaction to her decision to go dark was a whispered, "Wow."

She glossed over how she ended up in the alley with Henry in her sights. Instead, she focused on the fact that there was no practical way to take him into custody and get him out of China. She had the drop on him, so she shot him.

The Judge didn't even blink at her confession. He apparently saw her hesitation because he said, "No worries, Ms. Walker. Some people_ need_ killing. He was one of them. But I'd stay out of China for a while, like the rest of your life."

Her background information talk took about half-an-hour. Then she offered a hypothesis about information passed under authorization to a sub-committee of the Intelligence committee as the only viable leak and her hypothesis about the EB-5 money and the data they had linking the shipments to Senator Pearson's attendance. Then she listed the four EB-5 companies run by Pearson's brother-in-law that were curiously aligned in timing. She was careful to say she had no evidence of them doing anything counter to the best interest of the United States, or even illegal, but she needed to look because there was clearly someone or some organization still functional that was trying to kill her, and she didn't think it was because of her hair color."

When she finished, his response was, "Thank you. That's more than enough justification. I'll sign the warrant, but I am broadening its scope. I will write in any phone calls, e-mails and databases related to the EB-5 program and supporting activities. In addition, I'll include all data, records in any media, property and reports of Lexington Global anywhere in the world. Full wiretaps and network intercepts from any Lexington facility worldwide are to be part of the search." He made the note on the warrant, initialed and signed it, made a quick copy on the machine behind him and handed the original to Annie. "Cover me by putting the story you just related in a document and have Rossabi bring it to me. Ms. Walker, put them out of business however you can.

"I'll take them down, Your Honor."

He looked at her for a long moment and said, "I believe you. I wouldn't want to be them. Okay, let 'em back in if they haven't gone home."

Annie chuckled and said, "They will be right out there, or what's left of them after wearing their skin out from the inside will be there."

The Judge laughed as well and said, "Good one," in an almost collegial tone.

# # #

**11:00 AM Day 7, Leaving Judge Marks' Chambers:**

When Rossabi and Burk were seated, the judge turned to Rossabi, then back to Annie and said, "Ms. Walker, if you need something related to this, come with Agent Rossabi or Agent Burk but don't hesitate to bring it. If you can't get here, I'll come to you. I'll expect to hear from you in the next day or so. This looks like one of those cases that's just about to explode. Here's my card, call the number on the back." Then he added, "Thank you very much for that concise and lucid presentation of a very complex story. In the words of my former colleagues, Bravo Zulu, Walker." Then, to the astonishment of all of them, he walked around his desk and offered his hand to Annie.

She stood, took it, and said, "My pleasure. Thank you, Your Honor."

"Thank you. Good luck." Then he turned and offered his hand to Agents Rossabi and Burk as he said, "And thank you as well. Both for your effort to catch these criminals but also for introducing me to Ms. Walker. It was a huge honor for me to meet her."

Rossabi was tongue-tied, but Agent Burk managed to say, "Thank you, Your Honor. You're welcome. We need to go put this warrant to good use." She turned and left through the door that Annie had already opened.

When the door was closed and they'd gotten down the hall a little distance, Rossabi said with a trace of panic in his voice, "Who has the warrant?"

Annie pulled the folded document out of her pocket, offered it to him, and said, "I do."

Rossabi took the offered document, verified it was signed and then said, "He added a bunch of scope - it's hand written. I'd never have asked for that. How did you get him to put it in?"

Annie said, "I didn't. He listened to my story and added it himself."

Rossabi just looked at her for a few seconds then said, "That whole session was a first for me. I've never shaken the hand of a FISA Judge before. I've never had one act like that. And never, ever, has one even considered adding to the warrant. What is it with you, Walker?"

Agent Burk just smiled and said, "It's what she does."

# # #

**1:30 AM Day 7, Langley, Annie's Office and Team Room:**

With the warrant in hand, Megan called Bill Cleary back in Philadelphia, and without giving him any background, asked him to provide them with a database of new business start-ups based on foreign investment via the EB-5 program. Bill's expertise was related to business and white-collar crime, so it was right up his alley. When he had isolated an interesting data set, he called Megan back and gave her the link to it. She logged into the FBI Philadelphia office, and Sarah, who'd been watching with interest, told her how to move the data out to a CIA cloud where she could bring it in and cross correlate it with her other searches and data sets.

About six hours of steady work later, things started to pop.

Megan said, "Of the most likely candidates, most are on the East Coast. Two are in Silicon Valley. One is a CIA contractor in Michigan."

Jo looked at the address for the Michigan company and said, "I know where that is. I thought it was an insurance company. Give me a minute." Before they could reply, she disappeared out of the office with her phone coming up to her ear. Annie looked at Sarah and grinned.

Megan said, "What?"

Annie said, "She forgot her phone won't work in here."

Sure enough, Jo was back in a few seconds and said, "I forgot."

Annie laughed and said, "Use the landline, but don't say anything you wouldn't want recorded. The whole conversation will be monitored in real time."

"Oh, well that's okay. I'm just going to call my Dad. He's lived up there all his life and done business in the area for forty years. I think he might either know the business that's there now or at least the history of the businesses in the building. If not, he can easily find out."

Annie chuckled and said, "I don't think that particular business is the most promising for our current purposes. It's a CIA contractor, but it might be worth some study by the FBI after we get whomever we are after now."

Jo said with a smile, "Unsub. We call them unsubs. Stands for unknown subjects."

Annie just rolled her eyes. Jo and Megan laughed. Megan commented, "Jo, I don't think we are going to convert her to a real FBI agent."

Annie said, "Don't be too sure. You guys get bulletproof vests with 'Good Guy' on them in big yellow letters. I tend to be wearing a blouse, holding a gun and doing a good imitation of a target. The blouse doesn't even stop spit. I could definitely like the good guy vest idea."

Annie saw Sarah looking at her and said, "What?"

"Nothing really. I just figured out who you are. You were the anonymous subject of an all day set of case studies in the last mandatory training we had to take about a week before Auggie wanted me to help him rescue you. You've been in something fifteen to eighteen gunfights, several hand-to-hand fights, and you are still alive. The only time you got shot you weren't armed. That is you, right?"

"So?"

"Please don't be offended, Annie. I had no intention of offending you in any way. They didn't even tell us the gender of the subject of the studies. It's just, you seem so normal, pretty much girl-next-door, but inside you are Lady of Ch'iao Kuo, a strong female leader and warrior. I admire that more than you can know. I read her story after I was adopted and raised by my Mom and Dad in Thousand Oaks, California."

"When were you adopted?"

"I was seven when I was adopted. China ended the program shortly thereafter. I was one of the last of my age, without a major birth defect, allowed to go. I was, of course, fluent in Chinese, Mandarin, and Cantonese actually, so I have that language as well as native, relatively un-accented English."

Annie smiled at her and then said in perfect Cantonese, "I too have read the story and the legend of Lady of Ch'iao Kuo and truly admire her accomplishments. I have done nothing to compare with that, though I share her commitment."

Sarah replied back, also in perfect Cantonese, "You share her spirit. You share her soul. And you speak perfect Cantonese complete with idioms and regional tone for Hong Kong."

Annie realized the whole room had gone dead quiet. Sarah noticed the silence too because she looked around and said, "What?"

Barber said, "I had no clue Annie spoke whatever sort of Chinese that was. I know she speaks Russian, German, Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, some Urdu, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and some dialects of Serbo Croat, but not whatever that was."

Sarah replied to Barber, "She speaks perfect idiomatic Cantonese. First Westerner I've met who can do that and wasn't raised over there." Then she turned to Annie and asked, in English, "How many languages do you speak?"

"I'm level five, native, in six; get by in another dozen or so. Cantonese isn't one of my better languages, but I love it so I practice it sometimes."

Sarah just looked at her, said, "Wow. I suppose you can dance too?"

That got the room to laugh which relieved the tension. Annie said, "Sarah, let's ignore the business in Michigan for now and go after the two on the east coast, the one in Newbury Park, California, and the one at the research building in Thousand Oaks, California, that just started up a year ago. Newbury Park/Thousand Oaks, that's your backyard, right?"

Sarah said, "Conejo Valley. Yup, I can do that," turned and her fingers clattered on the keyboard with incredible speed and accuracy.

With that effort in good hands, Annie turned back to Barber and said, "How about you tackle the ones on the East Coast?"

# # #

**6:30 PM, Day 7, Langley, Annie's Office and Team Room:**

The rest of the day went well. There was a low level of background conversation, the sounds of a team functioning well and in synch. Then Sarah said, "I'm blocked. No access to the private business's financials. I either need a warrant so I can go through the front door or permission to hack my way in."

Barber said, "I've run into the same thing here. Shall we go for it?"

Jo said, "Annie, this is where I think you need to stop and go for another warrant that names all the likely companies as subjects and gives us permission to hack our way in if you want it to be admissible. If we go in the front door, there is a good chance we'll never see the real data. But I'd bet Sarah and Eric can find it if we can get them in legally. It's too late in the day now. However, we can e-mail Rossabi our justification and he can go to the judge in the morning. I think he can call now and get on the schedule. This is a high priority request. I can tag it as Director Level."

"Thanks Jo. Have Rossabi tell you when he's supposed to meet with the judge. If it's Judge Marks, I should probably go with him."

"Can do."

"Thanks. You got this. I'm going to take Auggie and call it a day. Thanks everybody. This has been a really good day."

There was a chorus of wishes for a good evening as Annie and Auggie left.

# # #

**7:30 AM Day 8, Civilian Conference Room, Langley:**

At Rossabi's request, Jo, Megan and Rossabi asked Calder to arrange a meeting in the civilian conference room. They had struggled into the night with what to put in the second warrant. They had gotten some boilerplate language from a Forensic Accountant at the FBI Philadelphia office but they weren't sure it was going to get them what they wanted. They had called it a night at 10 p.m. and agreed to an early morning meeting back in the same room at Langley so that Annie could join them.

After she read through the proposed warrant with a fresh rested brain, Jo said, "I know what's missing here; we need to include all records, meeting minutes, and internal accounting reports from any and all of the firms that audited these firm's books, and if they are a subdivision, related records in the parent of the auditing company. I'd bet the DHS and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services just accepted the auditor's certifications at face value, but it would be unlikely that the firm could truly hide money flow significant enough to be of value to a terrorist cell from their auditor. It's way more than petty cash amounts."

Megan looked up for a few seconds and then asked, "What makes you think that?"

"My Dad was an accountant. His firm specialized in auditing."

Dad said, 'It's all about money. It's always about money. Accounting firms are paid by the business they are auditing. Accounts are audit contracts. Those with big business are worth millions and highly prized. Lose one for your company and you need to update your resume. Most transgressions, simple errors and even major errors, are a small percentage of the business, so they can be covered, hidden. The client will often tell the auditing organization to bury it. And they do, for in their opinion, it doesn't affect the companies' investment quality. It requires collusion between audit firms and business's accountants. Auditing organization wants the fee; business wants to look good.

"He also said that the law that would convict an auditing firm is a rather tough bar to get over. One of his examples was the Enron/Arthur Anderson case. Arthur Anderson's conviction was over turned on a technicality related to jury instruction, but he said without that even though the employees destroyed some client data at management's direction, if it was within policy, without proving the policy was created to enable fraud, or management knew the data was fraudulent, it was going to be a tough sell. The prosecution knew that. Because of that, and the fact that the firm had been effectively destroyed by the case, the prosecution decided to let it go. But the lesson in it for accounting firms was that industry giant Arthur Anderson was basically put out of business by one high profile trial where they weren't found guilty.

"He also said that, in his opinion, without Anderson's cooperation the forty-billion dollar fraud could not have happened. He said the pressure placed on the auditors by high dollar accounts can be incredible. He also pointed out that in bigger businesses it is possible to hide large dollar diversions because they are small with respect to the company's books. The lesson for us is that while million bucks can buy a lot of terror, but it gets lost in a half billion dollar company. The numbers are there and can be found, but you have to be looking hard because they fall within the rounding error for companies with high business volume. Short of encountering the data in a random sample of raw transactions and recognizing what it is, it's invisible. But it's there in the detailed individual transactions, and a good auditor could find it. Hence, the auditor's cooperation is required. The auditor might not know where or for what the money was used; usually it is to line the pockets of some person or other.

"He told me that it's very hard to catch unless it's overt. He gave some examples that I won't go into here.

"So I think we need to add the auditing firms' records including all meeting minutes, recordings, videos, policy and procedure manuals, raw data files regardless of media, and formal reports. Without that we may not be able to find what we are looking for."

Sarah, who joined them with a laptop that had a secure connection back to the team servers, said, "You think the auditing firm might be complicit in the terrorism?"

Jo thought for a few seconds and then said, "I think that's unlikely. The auditing firm would know there was money being diverted or improperly accounted, and be able to trace or hide its impact on the firm's profitability and tax picture, but there is almost no chance they would have a clue it was for terrorism. Our biggest lever on the accounting firms is that Arthur Anderson was destroyed by a court case where they were later found to be not guilty, but they were destroyed anyway because nobody would trust them after that. Audit firms will be very anxious to avoid that happening. The specter of complicity in a high profile terrorism trial would have them willing to drop any client at the first inkling of the client's involvement in it. I think their best defense is to be completely up front with us. Unless there is evidence they are complicit in the terrorism plot, and with the precondition that they aren't involved in actions counter to the interest of the US, I'd offer them immunity, and they'd probably tell us everything they knew. If they didn't ,I'd start to check deeply into the back story of the firm's principals to see if there was a true-believer or home-grown lurking there."

Megan said, "Works for me." She used Rossabi's laptop because it was connected to the big display in the room, but wasn't wired into the network to quickly type out a paragraph for their review. When she had agreement, she looked around and asked, "We done?"

Annie, not being a lawyer, had no opinion, but all the lawyers in the room nodded, so she looked at Rossabi and said, "How about you return to your office, get this printed on proper stationary and we meet you at Judge Mark's office?"

Rossabi said, "Yes. Thanks guys. I'll let you know when our appointment is. This was a big help."

# # #

**2:00 PM Day 10, Langley, Annie's Office and Team Room:**

Warrant in hand, the team had been heavily involved in studying the purloined financial data including the four firms run by Senator Pearson's brother-in-law. It appeared those four firms might have gotten some favorable treatment due to some low key lobbying by the Senator, but they also appeared to be legitimate businesses. There was no hint of a connection to Lexington Global or terrorism. They discovered there had originally been seven businesses, but only the four that were successful had remained. The resident cards for those principals had been renewed, and they all employed fifteen or more employees, were making money and paid taxes. The audit reports had no 'except for' caveats in them, and data retrieved from the auditors under non-disclosure all passed muster with the Forensic Accountant at the FBI Philadelphia office, and the second one commissioned by Rossabi. These were not viable candidates.

What they had learned was that there were five other EB-5 businesses that were related to CIA money movements in terms of timing. They followed the movement by four months in all cases. E-mail data and, surprisingly, trade journal articles proved Senator Pearson had been instrumental in getting them into the program as well, but it looked like there was a lot of pressure on her from Lexington Global. The pressure came in the form of records found buried in the archives at Lexington Global of her late husband's early career business dealings. While they were buried, there was evidence that Henry, himself, had accessed them within the last year – possibly to use as leverage against Pearson.

The events in question had occurred twenty-five years earlier when her brother-in-law was scrambling to get his manufacturing business off the ground. Apparently, he'd given bribes to local politicians to get favorable incentives for locating his factory. The incentives weren't unusual, but the bribes to influence the incentives were. The statute of limitations had long since run out making prosecution for these charges against the few that were still living a non-starter, but the damage done to Senator Pearson if this leaked to news and social media would be substantial. Basically, she could kiss her political career goodbye.

The bribes were paid to her late father, deceased of natural causes, and a couple of his friends who had been on the state new business development commission at the time. The businesses involved also contributed significantly to Senator Pearson's early campaigns when she was running for state office. The evidence of them was found because the firm that audited the business had gone out of business when the proprietor died years later, but his family had stored the records along with other things of his. They weren't saving them for anything; they just hadn't thrown them out. They weren't digital, but with high-speed scanning technology, the records of interest were imported to the database in about twelve hours.

The business Henry bought, with funds they hadn't been able trace yet, to use as the core of Lexington Global was the business that had been given favored treatment by Senator Pearson. He didn't contribute directly but through the business into a Political Action Committee. When the auditing records were retrieved, it was clear the contributions were illegal and not properly accounted for in the business books. What was damming in all of it was that they had concrete evidence in the form of e-mails that showed Senator Pearson knew about not only the illegal contributions but also about Henry's plan for revenge. One e-mail from her indicated support for humiliating the CIA, however it was done.

Annie was shocked to see an e-mail from Senator Pearson to Henry that mentioned Joan. In it Senator Pearson made a barely veiled wish to have Joan assassinated because of the threat she represented. That had happened while Annie was in Geneva. They also knew Henry had tried, and nearly succeeded, in having Arthur killed, but there was, as expected, no evidence that tied Lexington Global to those failed hits. The bodies of the hitmen hadn't provided a lead either. They were local thugs and had apparently been contacted off the grid. Their computers, phones, credit cards and bank statements provided no clue to who had hired them.

After Jo had laid it all out in a short presentation on the big monitor, Burk said, "You'd think she'd have been exposed by her competition, but she ran unopposed in both her senate primaries and, essentially because of weak, underfunded opponents, in both her elections. There was a remarkable lack of media curiosity about her background. When I ask myself why she was unopposed, it wasn't from lack of opponents who were qualified and motivated, it was because her opponents dropped out of the race just about the time it would have gotten interesting. I think it's time to pay a visit to some of those dropouts. Annie, you up for a road trip?"

"Normally, I'd say yes, but in this case, I would prefer, for case integrity reasons, that you and Megan, or Megan and Rossabi, do it. Besides, there is nothing about it that requires my skill set or exposure to a potential hit man. The CIA isn't an investigative agency by charter. This is really the FBI's main cup of tea at this point." Annie paused; she'd suddenly remembered that she heard Joan had been visited in her office by Senator Pearson just before she was forced out of the DCS job and replaced by Braithwaite. She said, "I want to call Joan. I think she has some experience with Senator Pearson. Give me a minute."

She left the room and called Joan from a deserted lobby down the hall. Joan answered, "Hi, Annie. Give me a minute to get Baby Mac comfortable. I'm trying to feed him." Annie heard some baby sounds in the few second's wait until Joan came back on and said, "Okay, good for a couple of minutes, go."

"Senator Pearson visited you in your office shortly before you were forced out of the DCS position."

"Yes, that's right."

"What was the purpose of her visit?"

"I don't want to go into that on the phone, but if you were to come over, I'd be happy to tell you in some detail about Senator Pearson. If you decide to cross swords with her, look out. She has some powerful friends, and she's ruthless with regard to defending her position."

"You had a run in with her?"

"Lost a run in with her would be more accurate. She and the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee used Teo and Arthur to pressure the DCI when she demanded he move me out and Braithwaite in. I think there might have been some not so subtle hints about funding cuts."

"You were in the same room with the DCI when I came back and didn't claw his eyes out. In fact, you were civil to each other."

"He came to the house and personally apologized while you were on your way back from China. I'm convinced the DCI had no clue about Henry's traitorous actions. Henry painted a credible and plausible picture using selected data. One would hope a DCI would know better than to fall for that, but the DCI is almost never an intelligence professional, so they are vulnerable to master manipulators like Henry, and, unfortunately, to the master manipulator heads of some foreign intelligence agencies. The DNI is also political, so he's subject to pressure as well. That doesn't mean I condone what they did, but they did both admit their mistake, and the DNI went to some lengths to tell the DCI to stay out of your and Calder's way with regard to this joint FBI/CIA investigation. By the way, bringing the FBI into it was brilliant, Annie. I realize it was coincidental that they were from a very effective White Collar Crime office, but without them, we'd be on the end of the limb and sawing vigorously. With them in it, Pearson doesn't have a leg to stand on if she's been bad."

"Thanks, Joan. Jo and I are going to see her as soon as we can get an appointment. We're trying to write a second warrant now. When would be a good time for Jo and me to visit? I don't think we'll be there very long, but I really want the details of your encounter with Senator Pearson so we don't get blindsided."

"Baby Mac will be going down for his nap in about twenty minutes. Can you two get here by then?"

"There would be three of us. Chief Peters would be with us as well - he's my security team. He can wait in the living room watching TV or something. We can talk someplace else perhaps?"

"Sure. No problem. I certainly don't want to fill him in on all the dirty details of what went on. I'm not anxious to tell Agent Bell either, but if she agrees it's off the record, I'm okay with it."

"See you in half-an-hour."

Annie walked back into the room and said, "I am going to meet with Joan. She's had some interactions with the Senator. She'll fill me in." She focused on Jo and added, "I'd very much like you to go with me, but Joan insists the conversation is off the record."

Jo said, "I'll agree to that, but I hope she isn't going to reveal actionable treason, that's on the record. Period."

"Agreed."

"Okay, then to get the warrant?"

"Not sure yet. We might want to change it a bit after we talk to her." She turned to Barber and said, "Eric, will you have Peters pick us up at the usual gate in ten minutes?"

He looked up, smiled, and said, "Sure."

01/29/2014


	11. Gotcha!

Hi-jacked / FRW

8

**Chapter 11**

**Gotcha**

**11:00 AM Day 11, Annie's Office and Team Room:**

The team linked Senator Pearson to Lexington Global but couldn't really tie her to the assassination attempt on Annie. So they looked deeper and came up with a former BlackPond executive, a man named Archibald (Archie) Rickman, from the Desert Storm era. He was hired by Henry on a contract that gave him executive control of Lexington Global in the event of Henry's demise. When the FBI uncovered the fact that he was Senator Pearson's former lover, they thought they were finally on the trail of the right guy. Finally, they had also received the detailed meeting minutes and attendance list for all the update meets between Alex Boulware of the CIA General Counsel's office and the Senate Intelligence Committee. In those meetings, Boulware informed Senator Pearson, in detail, in real time, about Annie's escape route.

They obtained a warrant for Lexington Global that covered all its employees, so the team followed Rickman to be sure they wouldn't be surprised and had Jo and Barber enter his house and dump his hard drive. They were surprised to find it wasn't encrypted. They hit pay dirt when they discovered an e-mail from what they could prove was the Senator's phone that told him Annie's route. The e-mail had been sent to him at home less than an hour after the committee meeting. It had given him about fifteen hours to set up the hit.

He turned out to be the one with the most to lose if Lexington Global went under. He clearly believed it would if Annie was alive to testify. Between his phone records and the e-mail, it was clear he made the detailed arrangements to have the hitman attack Annie on the plane. The hit man was to kill all on board but keep the pilots alive until he knew he could leave the plane without taking off. Plan B was apparently to have the plane take off, kill all aboard and escape by parachute. A second attack had been planned at Hickam Air Force Base, but they didn't land there, and he couldn't switch venues in the short time they were on the ground.

It was also clear he'd hired another hitman who was in DC and actively looking for a chance to kill Annie. There wasn't enough information to figure out who it was, but they all concluded if they arrested Rickman, they could get him to give up the name one way or another.

# # #

**7:00 PM Day 11, Lexington Global Office Building, Rickman's office:**

Warrant in hand, the Agents Rossabi, Bell, Annie and her protective detail arrived at Rickman's office in the deserted Lexington Global Building to arrest him and discovered he'd just left. His computer was turned off but still warm. Their background checks had informed them that Rickman kept two planes in a hanger at a small general aviation airport. It was vital to disrupt his flight plan, so Rossabi had a Blackhawk helicopter land in the Lexington Global parking lot and pick them all up. It delivered them to the airfield ahead well ahead of his arrival and then left to go refuel. A few minutes later, a second Blackhawk arrived with eight members of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team. The helicopter would be on call if they needed it. So would a the hot standby fighter jet out of Andrews.

The HRT lead preferred that his team deploy outside the hangar. His plan was to wait out of sight and arrest them when they got out to open the hangar doors. He had some portable floodlights that he planned to blind them with if it was dark.

# # #

**7:58 PM Day 11, Rear door of hangar that Rickman Leased:**

Rossabi and Jo agreed their search warrant covered it, so Annie picked the lock on the back door of the hangar. She, Peters and Jo entered and closed the door behind them while the rest deployed outside. Annie followed Jo into the hangar, flipped a light switch to the left of the entrance door and heard Jo say, "Oh my gosh, I _love_ his planes. Annie, the sleek one is a Mooney 231. It's turbocharged, might even be intercooled, has retractable gear, a variable pitch prop and cruises at 200 knots! I assume it's his because it's the only one in the hangar that would work as a getaway plane. That little red and white bi-plane is a two place Pitts Special S2-A aerobatic plane. That would suck as a getaway plane." She wandered over toward it and said, "The Pitts looks totally cherry." She trotted around them and then bent over to look under and stretched up to see the tops of both planes. "They both look great. Like new."

Annie laughed and said over the sound of Chief Peter's chuckling, "Control yourself, Jo. If you drool, your DNA will be all over them. It would be a shame to wreck them. How can we quickly prevent the bigger one from flying without having to wreck it? It's got the small one blocked in."

Jo said, "Piece-a-cake. I'll just take the air out of its tires, and that beauty won't go anyplace." She walked over to a workbench, surveyed the adjacent toolboxes, opened a couple of drawers and apparently found what she wanted, because she selected a small object and returned.

"Whatcha find?"

Jo showed Annie a standard valve cap with the core removal tool on the other end. She quickly used it to remove the valve stem cores from all three tires, and they rapidly settled down until the rims were almost on the concrete.

While Jo sabotaged the plane, Annie surveyed the hangar. It had a large roll up door that was offset to the right side of the hangar with the sleek plane centered on it. Between the sleek plane and the left wall, but all of five feet out from the wall, were several roll around toolboxes and a workbench. Two of the toolboxes had workbench tops; the other three were nearly as tall as she was. They looked heavy to her. She opened a couple of drawers and found them filled with tools all neatly laid out – not really bullet proof, but at least something that would provide concealment. She decided their best bet was to move one of them to provide a gap in the middle of the line and then position Peters in the middle where he could rest his M4 on one of the bench top ones and sweep the whole hangar. She and Jo could each take an end. Annie decided she wanted to be on the end facing the roll up door. Jo could face the personnel door in the rear where they had entered. Jo had a semi-auto shotgun she'd borrowed from the HRT guys. Annie had a Glock 19 and two spare magazines. In honor of there being a contract out on Annie, they were all wearing heavy combat vests with rifle rated plates back and front. The good news was they were going to stop anything up to a three-oh-eight. The bad news was they were heavy and bulky. Annie decided she could live with that, literally.

With the plane immobilized, Annie said, "Jo, cover the back door. Chief, if you would take the middle behind one of those roll around bench toolboxes you can sweep the whole hangar with automatic fire. I'll take the side towards the roll up door. There is a personnel door on the far side behind the smaller plane, but it's an easy rifle shot for you. I think they will have to come into the building to roll up the big door, assuming they get by HRT. I think they will park just beyond these tool boxes so the plane is clear to roll out."

Jo said, "That works for me."

Peters said, "Aye aye, Annie."

"I think we'll get a heads up from HRT when they come in the gate, but I'm going to go turn off these lights. Hopefully our eyes get a chance to adapt to the dark."

# # #

**8:50 PM Day 11, In hangar that Rickman leased:**

They were beginning to wonder if they had made a mistake about where Rickman would go when Annie's earpiece relayed a command from the HRT lead, "SUV approaching the entry gate, three male occupants."

The three took cover in their agreed to positions behind the toolboxes. Annie saw Jo kneeling behind the toolbox while she and Peters were prone on the floor. She whispered, "Jo, hit the prone. That tool box isn't bullet proof."

Jo immediately did as Annie suggested.

All three of them heard the HRT commander say, "Be advised, the gate confirmed it's Rickman's SUV and has three occupants - driver, driver's side rear, passenger side front. Wait until they get out and are between the car and the hangar door, then hit the floodlights. Acknowledge."

Jo replied for the team inside the building followed by a series of clipped professional responses, then radio silence.

Suddenly the hangar door started opening rapidly. Clearly, it was on a remote. Annie said, "The SUV's coming directly in. We need to surprise them as they exit." Annie and Jo stood and then crouched behind the toolboxes ready to react. Out of the corner of her eye, Annie saw Peters come to one knee and look between the toolboxes. Annie said "They will have to park on this side of the planes just past these tool boxes. Jo, take the driver. Jed, the one in the back seat, I'll go around behind it and take the front seat passenger. I've no idea who we have besides Rickman."

Jo said, "Driver. Roger."

Peters said, "Back seat. WILCO."

The SUV pulled into the hangar, swerved to pass between the toolboxes and the plane and screeched to a to a rocking halt to their left just beyond the toolboxes. It was about half way to the back wall near where Annie predicted. She started to move out from behind the toolbox to round behind the car as soon as the front of it passed her position. She was well in motion before the vehicle stopped. The doors opened as Annie rounded the far right end of the toolboxes and started across the rear of the SUV to the far side. In her peripheral vision she saw Peters had left his M4 behind and moved between the tool boxes to deal with the rear seat passenger. Jo had sprinted to meet the driver as he exited. After that, she lost track of the other two.

By the time she rounded on the far side of the SUV, Annie's vision narrowed to focus on the passenger. As the right side of the car came into view, she could see the passenger door about half way open. A large, dark-haired male was moving backward. His right leg emerged at the same time as his body started to slide out. He had turned awkwardly to his left, apparently to respond to the threat he perceived coming from that side of the car.

Annie could tell he wasn't aware of her, but she was concerned he was going to shoot at Jo or Peters, so she shouted, "Federal Agent!" to distract him as she continued toward the open door at full speed. She could see indecision because the body stopped and then started to turn to its right. That lost motion gave her the opportunity she needed. She saw an elbow emerge, and then his body moved sideways enough that she could slam her palm full force into the back of his head. The shock of the punch went back up her arm, but she continued forward to body slam into him. The thrust of her blow combined with his lack of balance forced his shoulder into a violent collision with the door frame. His neck and throat smashed into the guillotine like 'V' formed by the front door and the door frame.) His right arm had moved ineffectually to block his collision with the car, and his gun fell to the floor. Annie used her left arm to push herself back up off him, and she was surprised when he forced himself back and almost threw her off her feet. He was clearly a trained fighter in excellent condition. His awkward position gave her a moment's advantage, so she pressed her attack.

She regained her balance as he came erect and started to reverse and turn left toward her. She was able to strike again. This time she used a vicious backhand strike, and the edge of her right hand collided violently with his throat. He almost blocked the strike and managed to launch a blow during her follow through that hit her arm and drove it back and down away from the car. It opened her stance, but it also propelled her back a half step. She never lost her balance. He struggled to face her, and Annie could see his groin was going to be exposed as his right leg came past the seat. She planted her left foot and launched a full force kick with her right at his groin while his right foot was still airborne. The impact jarred her whole body, but the man was stunned. She grabbed his hair in both hands as his head came down in response. She planted her right foot and slammed his head down to meet her left knee coming up hard.

She lost her balance and stumbled back because her right almost didn't support her. It left her vulnerable to a strike, but it didn't matter. His body went limp, and he collapsed to the concrete. His limp arms did nothing to cushion the impact of his face. She struggled to keep her feet and succeeded. Her knee to his face had hit with a sickening crunch, but she didn't hear it. Jo told her about it later. She watched him for a few seconds, but he didn't even twitch. Bubbles of blood formed around his nose and mouth so there was some breathing.

With her fight over, she gave a quick right/left check and reflexively drew her gun ready for action as her vision expanded to take in the other side of the car. Peters had an older man up against the car; Jo had a younger one on the ground putting handcuffs on him. Annie's hearing returned; the hangar lights came on; she heard noises coming from the door. She turned her head and saw the HRT guys heading for them at a dead run. Thankful for her borrowed vest with FBI on the back of it, she checked her opponent. He was immobile, so she tolerated the pain in her right foot and limped back about five yards. Her right wrist didn't respond normally so she switched hands and kept her gun trained on him with her left hand.

A few seconds later one of the HRT guys approached and said quietly, "I've got this ma'am." When Annie nodded, he said quietly, "Put the gun away so I don't have to walk in front of it, and I'll take custody of him." She nodded again and did as he asked, but she winced when she used her right hand to holster it.

Suddenly her right foot started to hurt. She reasoned it was because of the adrenaline wearing off and wondered if she'd broken something. She took a step to move over against the car and nearly fell down with the pain from her right foot. The HRT guy saw her and heard the sound she made. He quickly took her right arm and heard another gasp of pain. She grabbed his vest with her left to keep her balance. He shifted his grip to her left arm and said, "Ma'am, you want to sit down?"

She didn't think she could get up if she did, so she shook her head and replied, "Thanks. I don't think so. Just let me lean against the car. Make sure he doesn't get up."

He said, "Yes, ma'am."

He moved easily and helped her maneuver so she could lean against the car to get her breath and come down from the moment. Once she was stable, she said, "Jo, Peters, report."

Jo showed up in front of her about a second later and said, "Peters and I are fine." The two on our side saw us and surrendered. Rickman was in the back seat. The kid driving was nothing but a driver. Apparently he had no idea anything was going down. You had quite a scrap. Who did you have?"

"I don't know, but he was no amateur."

Jo said, "Are you okay?"

Annie did a quick self-assessment. She was aware the paramedics had arrived from their holding area behind an adjacent hangar. They parked just in from of the plane and started to treat the man on the ground. They had called for a gurney. She put her foot down and found it was tender, but it would hold her weight. She wasn't going to go for a run, but she could at least hobble. It was probably going to be really bruised but not broken. Her right hand and wrist might be sprained, but she figured if she'd been able to hold her gun and replace it in the holster, it wasn't broken. She said, "I may have sprained my right ankle and right wrist. I think my already messed up ribs didn't appreciate me body slamming him, but the vest sort of helped. At least he didn't land any punches or get to shoot. His gun is someplace on the floor."

The HRT guy was standing by and apparently heard their conversation because he said, "I have his gun. I sent in his picture and fingerprints. His face is all busted up; I think we are going to need the prints. He was having trouble breathing so I requested the EMTs."

Annie said, "Him breathing is optional. Let me know who he is when you get an answer."

"Yes Ma'am."A second later he said, "Whoa, that was fast." He studied his phone for a minute and said, " The guy's name is Brent Piper ... You definitely got the jackpot, ma'am. Says here he's an internationally wanted hit man. Suspected in seventeen assassinations worldwide, warrants for his arrest on pretty much every continent - Interpol has three for him. So do we. Three of the alleged hits are in the continental United States. Says here he's an accomplished martial artist and expert shot. Treat as armed and extremely dangerous." He stopped, met Annie's gaze for a second, nodded and said, "Bravo Zulu, Ma'am."

Jo said, "Figures. Our side surrenders; your side attacks like a cornered Doberman. Annie you need to work on some luck."

"I was lucky. If the car had stopped two yards farther away, he'd have had time to get his gun around before I could get to him. I can't tell you how much I hate getting shot."

# # #

**11:30 PM Day 11, Viewing area for an interrogation room, Quantico:**

Annie watched Rickman in the interrogation room with Rossabi. The paramedics had taped her ankle and wrist. She'd refused a hospital checkup for now. She knew she could get one at Langley.

Rickman had asked for a lawyer, so Rossabi just sat there and told him what they had on him and how they got it – warrants and all. Annie could see that Rickman wasn't going to say anything to Rossabi, but she could also see he was getting angry and frustrated. She said, "Megan, he thinks Senator Pearson is going to rescue him. He's just waiting for her to make that phone call. His frustration is with her, not us. I recognize the posture. I've done that. But, from his history at BlackPond, the guy has a reputation for having an anger management problem. We need to get him to react, get some leverage so he turns on her for a few seconds, and then we've got them both in a confession. I'm his problem. Jo and I should go in that room to relieve Rossabi.

"Have Rossabi unshackle his hands so he can have some water. He's been in there for three hours. He ought to be thirsty. It will also insult him that we think he's harmless. He'll hate that. I want him with his hands free and feeling arrogant and superior when I go in there. I think I can bait him into attacking me, and I should be able to handle him even beat up like I am, but if it comes to that, no disrespect intended, I'd rather have Jo as backup. Peters can't be in there. Please keep the video running no matter what, okay. I need for it to be clear he attacked me."

Burk and Rossabi agreed to let Annie partner with Jo in the interrogation room. It was arranged that Rossabi left while Rickman's hands were free. Annie and Jo left their weapons in the observation room.

Annie entered first. When he saw Annie enter the room, it was immediately obvious he recognized her. She said, "Hi. How does it feel to meet with proof of your impotence and abysmal incompetence face-to-face while you wait for your lawyer?" He reacted with instant aggression, but he had to go around the desk to get to Annie. Annie hesitated long enough that it was obvious he was the aggressor. She lunged forward ahead of Jo, got a grip on his arm and used his own off-balance momentum to take him down to the floor. She landed on his back with his arm behind his back, almost up to his neck. She heard the shoulder make some nasty noises.

Then Jo had his other arm pinned in a way that allowed her to cause him incapacitating pain if he tried to get up.

He growled, "Let me go, bitch!"

Annie said, "It's Federal Agent Bitches to you little man, but that doesn't seem like a good idea to me. You didn't say please. Why don't you make my day and try to escape. I'd love to destroy this shoulder. I know Jo would love to do the same to your wrist, maybe your elbow as an extra added bonus. The other convicts will use it against you forever if I do. You want that?"

Jo said, "Annie, I have the cuffs; let me get one on this wrist, then we can restrain him."

They maneuvered him off the floor and back into his chair. Jo cuffed him to the bar in the table and sneered, "Wow! Genuine tough guy."

"Yeah, typical muscle head," Annie laughed. "You can find more intellect in a power lifter's bicep than between this guy's ears."

When her insult elicited no response Annie said, "You should know, Senator Pearson isn't going to call anybody on your behalf. We have her dead to rights, legal search warrants and all. We have the e-mail messages to you and your communications with the hijacker slash hit man in Okinawa. You wired payment to his account in the Cayman's. You're done. So is she."

Annie could see the pain from his shoulder had him essentially immobilized. He was clearly a professional, because instead of asking for medical treatment, he said, "I'll give the Senator to you on a platter. I'll also give you the mole in the Agency, but I want no more than two years probation."

Annie said, "We already have that. We have your home computer hard drive. It wasn't encrypted. We have the mole: the new DCS's secretary, your current lover, placed there as a favor to you by your drone in HR. They are all in custody and telling us everything they know. They have answered every question we asked and some we didn't know enough to ask. They will all testify against you. We'd much rather give those low level pawns immunity and a trip into WitSEC than you - besides, I don't feel safe with you outside prison, and you would not believe the people I know that want me to feel safe. In addition to that, we have the entire message and phone call database from Lexington Global. You thought you deleted it, but you didn't know that paranoid Henry had a stealth offsite real time backup for all of it. We have that and have already broken his password - it was his late son's birthday. Duh.

"It will take us a while to comb through it. It's terabytes of data, but we'll get it done. I'm pretty sure we'll find everything we need in there to convict both you and the Senator of treason, attempted homicide and a hundred other charges. I think we can make the case you are both threat enough to be sequestered utterly incommunicado in the federal Super Max Prison in Florence, Colorado for the rest of your natural lives. At least you will be; they don't take women. She'll probably be in Danbury. You will be pleased to know you will get lifetime free medical care. No expense spared to make sure you live as long as possible. Computerized suicide watch is standard."

"You're CIA. You don't have arrest authority. I'll beat this."

Jo said, "No you won't. I'm FBI Agent Jo Bell. I have arrest authority and a warrant. There will be no plea bargain. You will also be immediately charged with assaulting a Federal Officer for your attack on Ms. Walker and myself in this room. That will hold you until we can formalize the terrorism charges, contract killing, and the treason charges. With our evidence the death penalty is a foregone conclusion."

"I'll tell you everything I know about the Senator, the other hitman I have on a prepaid contract, and the terrorist acts Henry was funding to give the CIA a black eye and something else you don't even suspect if you will put me in solitary until you've eliminated any threats against me, and take the death penalty off the table. I won't last an hour in common detention."

Annie knew this was above her pay grade, so to speak, and looked at Jo. Jo said, "Stay right there. I need to talk to a US Attorney, but if you put that in writing and sign it, I'll recommend they accept your offer."

Annie added, "So will I."

He did.

# # #

**3:12 AM Day 12, Outside of Judge Marks' office:**

The remaining hitman had been easy to find because he had his phone on. Apparently Rickman had exhausted the roster of his first team because this hoodlum was no better than forth string. The HRT isolated him in a hotel room. He'd given up as soon as he know who was out there.

They had the arrest warrant for the Senator, but Annie was pretty sure Pearson didn't know they had her former lover and wanted to approach it as if they were coming to her for information to take him down. Burk was prepared to take the lead. "Will that be acceptable, Annie," Megan asked. "Or would you prefer Rossabi lead because of his DC connections?"

Before Annie could answer, Jo interjected, "If I may, the Senator's a Wolverine. So am I. Might that be a bit of an _in_?" Megan appeared lost in thought, so Jo continued, "No disrespect, Megan, but U of M Law School Grads, especially high ranking ones like the Senator, tend to view Yalies as overrated. As soon as she vetted you for the interview she'd be hostile to start with." When Megan's gaze snapped to her, Jo held up her hands and said, "Not me. I'm not in automatic awe of Yalies, but working with you has engendered nothing but respect for you and them."

"The respect is mutual. I think you have a point. Annie, you comfortable going with Jo to interview a United States Senator?"

"Sure. This will be my second Senator. Now I need to get in touch with Chief Peters and wear a vest so she thinks I'm still worried about an assassination attempt. I think his presence to protect me against Rickman will help to complete the picture for her. She may be comfortable enough to rat him out just like he did her. I love it when that happens."

It did.

# # #

**5:00 PM Day 13, Annie's team room:**

Sarah had been gone since the morning after they arrested Senator Pearson. She left with no goodbye for a classified destination. Apparently Hong Kong station had an urgent mission for her, and Annie could sure understand why that might be. She was world class and had a magnificent attitude. Barber was moping around with her gone, but Annie hoped he'd get over it. She could see a spark on Barber's part, but she hadn't seen anything on Sarah's. If she were a betting woman, she'd bet Sarah had herself a good man someplace, but she wasn't about to say where.

The intensity of the investigation had faded to the point that Jo and Megan were leaving for Philadelphia the next morning. Rossabi would manage the follow up. Rob had volunteered to come down and drive Jo back, but she elected to take the plane and have him meet her at the airport. Near as they could tell, nobody else at Lexington Global but Rickman had known what was going on. The polygraph tended to confirm they all thought they were working for a legitimate CIA subcontractor led by highly respected executives in the person of Henry and the legendary Archie Rickman, former BlackPond executive. They were in mourning over the slaughter of their employees in China until they realized what they were.

Annie felt free to begin her life anew after the Judge ordered Pearson, Rickman, and the two hitmen held on remand. When Brent Piper's defense attorney had tried to argue he had ties to keep him here, the judge listened to him until he stopped. Then the judge asked, "Are you done?"

The Attorney said, "Yes, Your Honor."

The judge said, "I find your argument about bail for an internationally wanted hit man to be preposterous. Defendant is to be held on remand in administrative segregation." Annie was surprised the U.S. Attorney had moved so quickly, but that had been explained when Rossabi told her he'd had him in the loop since he'd learned she was alive and an attempt had been made on her life.

She and Auggie went to Calder and asked for six weeks unpaid leave. Calder refused. He insisted it be paid leave, but that meant they would have to at least have their Agency cell phones with them and check in once a week to let him know where they were. He promised he wouldn't recall them. He just wanted to be sure they were safe since both suspects had regular visitors in the person of their legal teams, and it wouldn't be impossible to set up something.

Calder did need them to remain in DC for at least a week before their leave began. He wanted them on call to tie up any loose ends that might show up. Annie said, "That works for us. I need to get a safe house and get moved into Auggie's apartment. You need a Close and Continuing on us?"

"I already turned it in. I'm certain it will be approved."

Annie took Auggie's hand and said, "If it isn't, we'll be gone. I'm not losing him again because of this job."

Auggie returned her squeeze and said, "Same here."

Calder said, "Go get a room," and laughed. Then he said, "Keep it professional while you are in the office. I know you have been, but I needed to say that."

Annie turned to Auggie and said, "Let's pick up my stuff from the room and go find someplace we don't need to be professional. I'd like to invite Jo over to your apartment. Megan's going to be busy. They are leaving in the morning, and I'd like to see if we can plan a get-together with her and Rob. You in?"

He was.

01/30/2014


	12. Endings and Beginnings

Hi-jacked / FRW

9

**Chapter 12**

**Kudos, Endings and Beginnings**

**7:30 PM Day 13, Auggie's apartment:**

With Pearson/Rickman/Piper on remand, Annie felt free to leave Langley, but an evening at Allen's Tavern, or anywhere else crowded and public, had no appeal. So, she had suggested she, Auggie and Jo go to Auggie's apartment. She was hungry but not in the mood to do much cooking, so when they had climbed in the rented SUV, she asked, "Grilled cheese and tomato soup work for you guys?"

Auggie and Jo both said, "Yes," so they'd stopped at a grocery store and picked up bread, butter, cheese, a quart of milk and a couple of cans of tomato soup. Annie watched the other two finish up their food. _We've been comfortable together but almost completely silent. They are all caught up in the aftermath of the massive effort we've just been a part of. _She suddenly realized why she felt so much different now than she had when the plane landed at Andrews. _These last two weeks have been a time of heightened intensity for the other team members, including Auggie and Calder, but it was a gradual let down for me. I needed that. It was a much needed transition, a ramp down from the months long stress of living in the dark with everybody and their brother looking for me with a loaded gun. As intense as this team effort was, when Pearson, Rickman and Piper were arrested it felt like I was almost home. Almost back to normal. Is it weird to almost want to thank those ass holes for giving me a way in from the cold? _She chuckled softly to herself as she gathered the trio's dishes.

Auggie caught the chuckle and asked, "What am I missing?"

"I was just wondering if it was weird to want to thank Pearson, Rickman and Piper for giving me a way in from the cold. The pressure had grown on me to the point where I was operating in locked down crisis mode twenty-four hours a day, every day. I was so numb I think you could have given me a root canal without the pain shot and I wouldn't have noticed it. The articulation and acceptance of my actions by my peers, including you two, over the past two weeks was a huge benefit to me. My stress had time to de-escalate gradually as we worked our way to the arrest, not killing, of the objects of the exercise. It was the perfect conclusion and an amazing contrast with being alone in the dark for so many months. The enemy no longer surrounded me with my only possible allies thousands of miles away. Instead, I was at work with friends beside me, and we were guarded by one of the best professional teams on the planet. It was mind blowing to me. That was a radical transition in such a short time. Being part of an overt team, being on the side of the good guys, was the best therapy I could have had. I'm sorry to have put all the others, including you, through it, but it was a huge step back toward normality for me."

Jo looked back at Annie for a few seconds and said, "The second most intense time of my life and it was a ramp down to normality for you. It's going to take me a while to fully appreciate that, but intellectually, it makes total sense from your point of view. What are you going to do now?"

Annie put down the dishes, wiped her hands, walked over behind Auggie and put her hands on his shoulders before she said, "I have a week or maybe a week and a half of red tape. I'm going to Frank's with Peter's team day after tomorrow and the next day, but then we're okayed for six weeks of leave for both of us. We really need it. We need to take a break and give us a real chance as a couple.

"Auggie, I'm letting Jo hear this because she's my best female friend on this side of the Mississippi. I'd like you to meet her boyfriend, Rob. I'd also like to read him in on both of us. Calder said he's been cleared, so have his parents, sister, and his sister's fiancée, but I really only want to read in Rob. I've never been introduced to the rest of his family as Betty Lou. They never have to know I'm anything but Annie Walker who works in DC as a free lance translator. If they want language demonstrations, I have it covered. I thought we might start at the Carlisle Car show weekend after next."

Auggie reached up to gently cover Annie's hands and said, "I'd like the time for us to step out of the running of the bulls that our life has become. Part of that is making joint friends. Jo, I'd like to meet your guy. Knowing you as I do, I can't imagine not enjoying his company. I love car shows. Jo, you in?"

Annie could see Jo studying them, so she returned Auggie's squeeze and added, "How about it, Bell? You up to riding out a read-in storm?"

"Yeah. But let me call him and make sure he's on board for the car show. He and I have learned to respect each other's sovereignty, so to speak. Can I get out to the street and back in? I hate to talk in hallways."

Auggie said, "Sure, the key code to get back in i pound."

" pound."

"Yup. When you get here knock."

"Thanks. I'll call him. Back in a few minutes."

After the door shut behind her, Annie said, "Auggie, I shouldn't have sprung-"

He rose, found her, and his lips arrested her apology in mid-sentence. A few pleasurable seconds later he said, "I'm right there with you. We do need to talk things over, because sometimes we'll have to negotiate, but right now, whatever you want to do to get us the time out works for me. Paid, unpaid, unemployed, doesn't matter to me. After the weekend in Carlisle, how about we go to Glencoe and meet my parents? We'll have time to be there a day or so ahead of the Memorial Day traffic and spend the Memorial Day weekend with them. I want them to meet my fiancée. Between then and now, I want us to go ring shopping."

"Auggie, that's a splendid idea. I'd love that. We have that high-end burglar alarm on the 'Vette; could we take that? We have time to get it checked over and take it on a shakedown drive. I sat in it to modify my ID a couple of times when I was in DC before we went to China. I don't think we've put a hundred miles on the new tires. We can tell the insurance company about the trip and see if we have to modify the policy, but I'd like that. Your parents have a garage we can park it in, right?"

Auggie chuckled and said, "Uh, yeah. They definitely have a garage we can park it in. You will be doing all the driving; you good with that?"

"Oh yeah. My guy, four hundred horsepower sports car, top down, extended summer vacation, I'm definitely good with that. I was going to suggest getting a camper for my truck, but I'd rather just make a reservation for the night someplace and take advantage of housekeeping. I don't think we can take the car cover. There isn't room enough for us, luggage, and that in the car."

"I think we're fine without it. We'll be one night on the road in each direction."

"How about our trip to the Carlisle Car show?"

"Let's take the Vette. We'll be there two nights, right? Friday night and Saturday night. Driving back Sunday?"

"Yeah. Might as well hit the insurance company with the whole nine yards at once. It's a car show, so I think, even though we aren't in it, it's covered in the policy. However, the trip to Glencoe wouldn't be - they might not like it if we were going to park it in Chicago. Heck, I wouldn't like it if we were going to park my old truck in Chicago."

"Not one of my favorite towns, but we're off the current topic."

"Sorry, guess I'm still a little hyper. I'd like to get up to Carlisle Friday afternoon. We can meet Jo and Rob for breakfast and then head for the car show. We can do an out-to-dinner, maybe at the Boiling Springs Restaurant we didn't get to last time? It was highly recommended by the locals."

"That sounds good to me. Rob and Jo will be going their separate way after Sunday breakfast. Want to head straight back or take the scenic route back?"

"Do I have to decide that now?"

"Nope, once we are on our own we can operate without any plan at all. Eat when we're hungry, play until we're tired, sleep till we wake up, and then do it all over again if we want to."

"Auggie, that sounds marvelous." She frowned and then said, "I hope we can get a reservation. It's a little late; the car show is a big deal and there's a paucity of motels up there."

"Okay, we need a backup plan. How about this, if we can't get a room, maybe we can rent a fifth wheel to go behind that Diesel pickup truck of yours and park it someplace, like a camp ground or something. That truck of yours ought to pull one big enough to sleep 4 adults, right?"

"I think it's rated to pull a pretty a big trailer. I'd need to check the specifications, but it's a three quarter ton truck, five speed stick-shift. I've seen some half tons pulling fifth wheels. Small ones, but honestly, if my truck can't pull it, it's probably bigger than we need. Let's hope we can find a motel room."

Just then there was a knock on the door; Annie checked the peep hole, saw Jo, and let her in. She still had her phone connected and said, "I've got Rob on speaker. Rob, I have Betty Lou and her boyfriend, Auggie here."

Annie said, "Hi, Rob."

Annie could see Auggie was about to speak when Rob said, "Betty ... I'm still not over ... I just can't say enough how great is to hear your voice again. Jo was devastated when ... when we ...-"

"Heard I was dead. I hope you can forgive me for that. I apologize again for the grief I gave my friends. All I can say is I had no choice."

Rob said, "You already know you are forgiven, but you still owe me a hug. Okay?"

"Deal. Now, I'd like to introduce my fiancée, August Anderson. Auggie, Rob Nickels."

Auggie said, "Pleased to meet you."

Jo said, "You guys are engaged!"

Annie said, "Yeah. We did that the night before the first team meeting. We felt like we were living in an avalanche and wanted to take a moment to create an island for us in the middle of it, so we did."

Jo set the phone down, scooped Annie into a hug and said, "That's amazing. Congratulations to you both. Rob, you really need to meet Auggie."

Rob replied, "I'm in for the Carlisle Car show. There is a tractor pull down at Shippensburg that Saturday night. If we end up at loose ends for the evening, maybe we can head down there. It's not a requirement; we don't need advance tickets or anything, but maybe?"

Annie said, "Sounds like fun. I've never been to a tractor pull."

Jo said, "It's more fun and more unpredictable than a drag race. But almost as loud. I have been to a couple of them now."

Annie said, "We need to find out if we can get motel rooms. If we can't, Auggie and I are willing to rent a fifth wheel to pull behind my truck as a backup plan, if we can find a place to park it. I think I'd need to get a hitch, but that's no problem. I'm pretty sure my truck will pull one big enough to sleep the four of us."

Rob said, "Your truck will pull more trailer than we'd need by a big margin. I'd vote for the motel room being plan A, but if we end up with plan B, I'll get us a place to park it, no problem. That car show is in my old neighborhood, so to speak."

While he was talking, Annie found the number for the Best Western in Carlisle where they'd stayed before and called to see if they had any openings. The phone answered with the usual spiel; when the speaker got to the , "How may I help you?" part, Annie asked, "I have my fingers crossed here, but do you by any chance have two rooms available for the weekend of May 16, 17, and 18?"

She almost dropped the phone when the clerk said, "You have lucky fingers; we had a cancellation of four rooms about two minutes ago. You want two of them?"

"Are they non-smoking?"

"Two are, two aren't."

"We'll take the two non-smoking ones."

"Excellent, may I have your name?"

Annie said, "I'll give the phone to my fiancée; he'll reserve one of the rooms, and then we have a second person here who will reserve the other. That okay?"

"Uh ... sure. No problem."

Annie handed Auggie the phone and whispered in his ear, "I don't want to reserve them as Betty Lou."

He whispered back, "I know."

A few minutes later, the reservations were all set, and they were off the phone with the motel.

Rob asked, "Betty Lou, you and Auggie have been to a car show there before, right? Jo said you guys have a '67 Corvette?"

Annie said, "We do. It's smoking hot. You'll get to see it. We will drive it up now that we don't need to bring a trailer."

Rob said, "Awesome. We could go to the Middleburg Diner for Saturday morning breakfast. They have great food."

Annie looked at Jo and felt Auggie reach for her and said, "We've done that; is there another place that serves a good country breakfast?"

"Sure, the Carlisle Diner on Route 11 right by the College. It's on the other side of town from the Motel, but the other side of town isn't far in Carlisle. What's wrong with the Middleburg diner; you didn't like it?"

"We ... that's another story for another day. I'm good with the Carlisle diner. You and Jo can lead the way. When does it open?"

"It's always open. They close Christmas Eve and Christmas day. That's it."

"You have it memorized?" Jo asked.

"It's really old news, but when I was a senior in high school, I dated a girl that waited table there part time."

Jo said, "That's before we met. No problem."

Rob laughed and said, "Can we treat you two to dinner at the Boiling Springs Restaurant Friday night?"

Auggie said, "Sure. Breakfast is on us."

Jo said, "We're four for four totally anal about planning. Enough, I want some private phone time with my guy, back in a few."

Jo turned to walk back out in the hall when Annie said, "Rob, congratulations on passing your professional engineering exam. All the time we worked together, I had no idea I was doing the dance of the behemoths with a brainiac graduate engineer."

"Thanks. Feels good to have my PE ticket. I can put the initials PE after my name now. But I think we're even, Betty Lou; I didn't know I was dancing with an FBI Agent either."

"Touché. Okay, Jo is trying to get out in the hall to spare us your parting remarks. See you in Carlisle in about a week and a half."

"Looking forward to that. Jo, tell me when we're alone."

Jo rolled her eyes, stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her.

When she came back fifteen minutes later, she said, "Rob and I are going to go to his parent's farm Sunday afternoon so I can meet them. We've been trying to get this done for a few months now, and this is the best chance. We'll meet you for breakfast Sunday morning, then arrive at their farm around noon. Rob said it's only about ten miles south of Carlisle on Route Eleven. He said you have reasonable express way access from the Carlisle Diner, so maybe we end up doing two breakfasts there."

Annie saw that Jo no longer had her phone in her hand, so she said, "Did you hang up?" When Jo nodded she asked, "Could you stay at their farm Saturday night after the tractor pull?"

"No, it would make both them and us uncomfortable. Rob and I are looking forward to the evenings in the motel, but we don't live together. We won't until we are married. I'm almost certain he is going to propose after we do the meet the parents thing with both sets of parents." She added, with a smile, "If you can't guess my answer, you haven't been paying attention."

# # #

**6:23 AM Day 14, Auggie's Apartment: **

Annie's phone rang with a blocked call while she waited for the Keurig to finish Auggie's coffee. She answered, "Hello?"

Her sister said, "Annie, Agent Rossabi said I can go home. Can I go home? Is it safe?"

"Yes. It's safe. We have them in jail. They are held without bail, and we have enough evidence that's legally pristine to keep them in jail for about a thousand years. Certainly the rest of their next hundred lives."

"Who was it?"

"It should already be on the news channels. It was Senator Pearson and an executive at Lexington Global named Archibald Rickman. The hitman who was after me was in the car with them, and he'll be locked up for life as well."

"I saw that on the news, but I didn't know they were the ones that came after you."

"Yup, it's them. If it's any consolation, I got to kick the hitman in the balls and smash his face when resisted arrest."

"I hope you smashed them into marinara sauce."

"Pretty much."

"Good. I can't visit you right now; my business is a mess. When can you make it to California?"

"Probably sometime in the next 6 weeks if things work out like Auggie and I are planning. We're going to take 6 weeks of recuperation leave and spend some of my back pay to travel around the country and just spend time with each other. I need to make sure it's okay with Auggie, but I'd love to visit and spend some time with you and my nieces."

"That's great news. Annie, you and Auggie can't arrive on a bad day. Call me or just show up on the doorstep; I don't care. I'll Fed-Ex you a key. In fact, Agent Rossabi will be here to set me free; can I have him bring you a key?"

"Sure. Where are you?"

"They said I can answer that. I'm in Colorado Springs at a little cabin out in the woods. I love it here; except the kitchen sucks for baking, so I'm probably going to make like a million muffins and rolls when I get home. Annie, I see the Federal Marshall coming. We're packed, so I have to hang up now. Love you.

'Love you, Danielle. See you soon. Bye."

"Bye." The call ended.

"Annie heard Auggie approaching, turned and said, "Good morning, you want some coffee?"

"Good morning to you. Rhetorical question, right?"

"Right," she answered. "But the coffee comes with a small fee," and moved into his waiting arms for a kiss.

# # #

**4:00 PM Day 14, DPD Conference Room:**

Annie had no idea what the meeting was about. The last few department meetings had been because of her. For this one she was invited just like everybody else. She and Auggie were seated near the front as usual. Auggie liked to be as close to the stage as he could be because he could hear movement in addition to what was said.

Calder got up at the front of the room and it quieted down. He said, "We are going to have a couple of vetted but not cleared visitors at the meeting, so the yellow lights are on outside the room. No big deal since all of you are in here anyway. Then he said, "This will also be rather special meeting. I'd like to introduce our speaker for the meeting, The Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, Parker James."

The room was dead silent then the DCI walked out from behind the curtain where Annie and Auggie had hidden before the last meeting about 3 weeks ago. Annie started to applaud, and the whole room burst into applause.

While he stood there and waited for the room to quiet down, Annie saw the DCI locate her in the crowd. He give her a quick smile. She turned to Auggie and said, "Oh crap. Here we go again," in Auggie's ear.

The DCI stood there for a minute and finally made a motion to be quiet. When the room was quiet again he said, "Officer Walker, please come up here and bring Officer Anderson with you."

Annie said to Auggie, "I don't know what this is, but you're coming too."

Auggie said, "I don't think the DCI has ever been in the DPD before."

Meanwhile the room was dead quiet. Annie turned to them and said, "Breathe, folks, breathe," and they all laughed. The laughter lasted long enough for the pair of them to get to the front of the room. When she got there, she shook the DCI's hand and passed it to Auggie. Then she turned around and froze when she saw Director Ramsey, Joan, Arthur, Jo, Megan, Rossabi, Frank, Chief Peters and his team, Danielle, Katia and Chloe in the back of the room. She quietly told Auggie who had so suddenly turned up.

Auggie found her ear and said, "Brace for praise."

The DCI said, "This is a first for me, probably for everybody in this room. We are gathered here to present the nation's highest intelligence award, the Distinguished Intelligence Cross, to Anne Catherine Walker for voluntary acts of extraordinary heroism involving the acceptance of existing dangers with conspicuous fortitude and exemplary courage.

He handed the award to a stunned Annie and shook her hand. Then he turned back to the audience that was still struck dumb by the moment and said, "I know most of you know what she did, but I want to read the text of the award to you:

"Anne Catherine Walker's service to the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency is the quintessential definition of extraordinary heroism, acceptance of known lethal danger and effective action with conspicuous fortitude and exemplary courage. Acting alone for five months, she faced extreme danger, volunteered to go dark with a price on her head and pursue the capture or elimination of the biggest traitor in the history of the United States intelligence services. A man who represented a lethal threat to the nation and it's intelligence resources worldwide. In the course of her effort, she repeatedly placed herself at risk of death or grievous physical injury for five months. Faced with insurmountable odds, she surrendered to the enemy in order to get close enough to the target to successfully eliminate him as a threat to national security. In the course of her effort, she also turned a high-level foreign agent who is the biggest intelligence leak in the history of China. Seldom in the history of the United States Intelligence Services has an act of such valor been performed successfully in such dire circumstances."

The room erupted with applause that carried on for a while. Annie finally moved to the microphone and said, "Thanks guys. Director?" and offered him the microphone.

The DCI said, "Thanks. Do you mind if I call you Annie?"

She replied, "No, sir."

He continued, "I wanted to add a brief personal commentary. Few people thought she would or could survive her mission. It looked like a suicide mission from the start. I learned a few days ago that to create the impression that she had been shot to death on closed circuit TV, she had to inject herself with a drug that stopped her heart just before the elevator door opened. An officer of a foreign intelligence agency had to administer the antidote within 40 minutes or unrecoverable brain damage or death would have been the result. It was close but that agent got it done.

"Had I known of her plan, and it was _he_r plan, I'd have disapproved it. The truth is that, master manipulator of people for information that she is, she convinced Calder Michaels, who supported her all the way through this mission, that she could pull it off. It was a near thing twenty-four hours a day for five months. I can't imagine living under such stress and staying sane.

"After the mission was over and she'd been successfully ex-filtrated from China, the legacy organization that worked with the traitor, whose name I'm not going to say because I don't want him to get that sort of publicity, organized a hit on her. She seemed to have a sixth sense, for she figured out the attack was coming and terminated the assassin before he could complete his mission.

"Myself, the DNI, the Director of the FBI, Joan and Arthur Campbell, met with Annie a few minutes after she got off the plane; we intended to congratulate her on her success. We didn't get a chance. She chewed us out and gave us a piece of her mind. Believe me when I tell you she can blister you better than a drill sergeant without raising her voice or using a bad word.

"She took over the meeting. We answered all of her questions; she didn't answer any of ours. She left the room in charge of a joint task force charged with finding the person or persons responsible for the attack on her. At the time, she was covered in bruises and had cracked ribs taped up – the result of those same attacks. She completed the effort successfully over the last three weeks, and as you all know, two days ago, Archie Rickman and a notorious international assassin were apprehended at a private airport. Senator Pearson was arrested in her home. All are being held without bail.

"Well done, Officer Walker. Well done.

A split second later there was a shouted, "URAUGH!" from Chief Peters and his team.

The DCI could apparently see people anxious to jump up and talk to Annie because he said, "Hang on for another few seconds. The yellow lights are on because we have some guests in the back of the room. FBI Director Ramsey, would you lead them up here." All eyes followed the parade of people to the front of the room. The DCI said, "Our special guests are FBI Director Ramsey who I learned has a special appreciation for Officer Walker. The others, in order, are Joan and Arthur Campbell, whom you all know, FBI Agents Megan Burk and Jo Bell who are badged into the DPD and worked seamlessly with the CIA to take down the assassins. FBI Agent Rossabi who provided the liaison with the legal system to get warrants that insure Senator Pearson and the other suspects will not get out of jail in this lifetime.

"And finally, I present to you Annie's sister Danielle Brooks and her daughters, Annie's nieces, Katia and Chloe Books. They lived through the process of grieving the loss of their beloved sister and aunt and for that, I apologize to you all. Your grief was part of the price paid to protect the country from a traitor, and I thank you for welcoming her back when she was most vulnerable.

"Annie, do you want to say a few words."

Annie noticed that Frank and the Seals had slipped out the back door of the room. She wasn't surprised, but she was really glad they'd been here. Especially Frank to see how much his training had helped her. She said, "Just thank you to the whole DPD and the FBI for the welcome home and the incredible support over the last few stressful weeks. I couldn't have done any of it without you. I want to give a special thanks to Directors Ramsey and James, Agents Bell, Burk, and Rossabi. They represent the best of the best. They are truly team players in every sense of the word. I'd trust any of them with my life, and I have, more than once. Joan and Arthur, thank you for never doubting me. You were there for me when few others were. Finally, I owe more than I can say to my amazing partner in life, Auggie Anderson."

She received more applause then Calder Michaels moved to the microphone and said, "Feel free to come up and talk, we have refreshments in the back of the room, but don't say your names to our guests.

"Thanks for your attention."

The FBI Director and the DCI slipped out the back door.

Annie and Auggie mingled with their co-workers for a while but finally took Jo, Danielle, Megan, Rossabi, Katia and Chloe out the back door and down to the civilian conference room.

Danielle said to Jo and Megan, "Your names are familiar. I've read them in the paper. Agent Burk, you were at the restaurant in Carlisle, right?"

"Yes, that's where I met your sister."

"Agent Bell, you were the agent rescued from terrorists in that warehouse in Philadelphia. Right?"

"Yes. Your sister was the one that rescued me. But we had met before that."

Jo turned to Katia and Chloe and said, "Girls, your Aunt is a real, true hero, but she's a secret hero. We're all so proud of her, and proud to know her, we could just bust, but we can't tell anyone. She saved my life from a bunch of terrorists, and I'd like to shout that from every building and mountain top in the land, but I can't do that because if I did, it would put her in danger. She has enough danger without her friends making it worse. You understand?"

Chloe said, "Yes. We understand. We had to go into witness protection because someone bad was after Aunt Annie. We know what it's like. We don't ever want to cause that to happen to her. We won't tell anyone."

01/30/2014


End file.
